Moon
by InvisibleJediMaster
Summary: A strange ghost comes to Amity park, but doesn't attack. Danny finds a human. The trio help her recover and discover that she can't speak English. In a distant country strange people plan to retrieve an 'experiment.' Criticism okay.
1. Nameless

This has been altered from the original so it should make more sense. Hopefully I will do a better job with this version because it kinda ran away from me last time. sweatdrop Yeah...

* * *

Danny was sitting at a lunch table with his friends, talking about the latest ghost fight—Skulker again—when his ghost sense went off.

"I was wondering. Today has been ghost-free so far." Danny spoke aloud these observations to Tucker and Sam. "I'll be back." He snatched up the thermos Tucker had automatically held up for him and darted around the corner of the school—they had eaten outside today because of the nice weather—and became the famous, or infamous depending on the perspective, Danny Phantom. He rose, invisible, and caught sight of his target, a small black and red figure flying at high speed over the city and towards the park. Oddly, it was losing altitude. It hadn't seemed to notice him, either. Now curious, he shot off in pursuit.

The ghost continued to lose altitude, drawing closer to rooftops as if unaware. At least, until it took a sudden nose dive into an alley with an oddly familiar glow that suddenly appeared around it. Danny flew through the last building in his way and saw, not the ghost, but a teenage girl. That she was not moving from her awkward position against the wall led him to believe that she was unconscious. He floated down to stand next to her and took notice that he was now the only ghost in the area.

Sam and Tucker were happily laughing and joking about who Danny was fighting at the moment. The Box Ghost maybe? He comes around often. Or maybe Technus.

Tucker stopped mid sentence when Sam suddenly stiffened.

Invisible, Danny had whispered in her ear. "Guys, you should see this. Just around the corner."

Sam got up. "Come on, Tuck, Danny found something." She led Tucker around to the currently deserted side of the school. There was Danny Phantom standing next to an unconscious, emaciated girl who had been placed in a position to sit against the wall.

"Danny?" Sam said in surprise. "Who's this?"

"I don't know," the halfa confessed, "but I think she's the ghost from earlier. She could probably use some help."

Sam only nodded as she took in the dirty old clothing and exposed bruising.

"What should we do with her?" Tucker asked. "We can't just leave her alone. And if she's the ghost, we can't take her to a hospital…"

"Take her to my house," Sam volunteered. The two boys looked at her in surprise. "My parents won't be home 'till late, and there are plenty of medical supplies in my house."

"Alright," Danny nodded as he picked up the dangerously light figure once again. "Where should I leave her?"

"My grandma is coming today, so put her in my room," Sam said. "She shouldn't be stumbled upon in there."

Danny took off again, gentle but fast, and returned just as the bell rang.

The trio continued to fidget through their last two classes of the day because they couldn't just leave without an excuse. Danny ended up flying them all to Sam's house because they had all become increasingly worried about the health of the stranger.

She was still asleep on Sam's bed, right where Danny had left her. She hadn't moved an inch.

"Go downstairs," Sam told Danny and Tucker.

"What? Why?" Danny asked, still Phantom.

"Because she's a girl and deserves some privacy when I clean her up," Sam said, completely matter-of-fact about the whole situation.

The two boys blushed and fled to the lower levels of the house. Sam carried the girl—was she really a halfa like Danny?—into the bathroom down the hall and proceeded to carefully wash and bandage her.

After what seemed like forever to Danny and Tucker, they were finally allowed back upstairs. They immediately went back to Sam's room. On her bed was the same girl as before, but she looked completely different. Her skin was considerably paler because Sam had washed all the dirt away and her ragged hair had become a rich dark red of approximately shoulder length. She wore a sleeveless tank top and a long plain skirt, both black. One arm was almost completely bandaged, though lightly, and the other was partially bandaged. A single foot was wrapped in gauze. Though that was all that could be seen, there would doubtlessly be more bandages under the clothes.

"Wow," Tucker eventually spoke. "She looks different."

"Yeah," Sam sighed.

"What?" Danny asked.

"She was covered with bruises and cuts and there were several scars," Sam told them. "Like she'd been tortured," she added like an after thought.

On the bed, the girl's breathing suddenly changed, signaling awareness of reality.

At first, she was slow to wake. But when she realized that she was on a soft bed, wearing comfortable clothing and bandages, her mind reeled. Where was she? Was she dreaming again? Her wounds throbbed to testify that this was indeed reality. Beyond confused, she took the plunge and opened her eyes, afraid to see the bright white lights of an examination room or holding cell.

The trio of friends waited silently as two eyes, one a steely gray/blue and the other a brown darker than that of dark chocolate, looked around the room to eventually stop on them.

To her surprise, she did not see glaring white. What met her eyes was instead the exact opposite, black and other dark colors. It was a strange room, filled with odd objects and books. On a desk was a computer, currently inactive. To her left were three figures, one near the bed and the other two in the middle of the room. Who were they?

"Are you alright?" Sam asked. "What happened to you?"

The one closest, a girl wearing black and purple clothing, spoke, and foreign words came to her ears.

"I don't understand you," she said weakly.

Sam's head tilted to the side as the stranger spoke something in a different language. It sounded like German, or maybe Russian. She didn't have much experience with languages that were not her own, so couldn't really tell. Behind her, Tucker and Danny exchanged glances.

"Hold on," Tucker said as he began to do something on his PDA.

"Tucker?" Danny asked. "What are you doing?"

"Got it!" he said, and he moved to stand beside Sam. He held his PDA out in front of him.

She looked at the African American holding the mini computer with apprehension. Her eyes widened in surprise when he spoke in her language. All he said was hello, but still. Sadly, he could not speak it well, so it was obvious that he did not really know the language.

"Hello," she repeated.

"I knew it!" Tucker said triumphant.

"Knew what?" Sam asked.

"She's speaking Russian."

"How did you know that?"

"My parents have some Russian friends that sometimes come over to visit. I don't really know any of the language, but I could recognize it."

"So she can't speak English."

"I doubt it."

She sighed and closed her eyes as she realized that the three people had no ill will towards her. At least, they didn't seem to. They hadn't done anything malevolent to her yet, instead bandaging her and putting her in new clothing. She listened to them talk amongst themselves in whatever language they were speaking. Where was she? How did she get to where ever she was? The memory was so vague. What had happened?

Her eyes opened again when the girl made a noise meant to gain her attention and she focused on her. She was holding a cup out to her, and it was filled with something. She pushed herself into a sitting position with some difficulty and stared at it.

"Water," the dark skinned boy said.

She took the cup and took a sip of what indeed turned out to be water. The glass was quickly drained and a dry mouth and throat were revitalized. With a stronger voice she said, "Thank you," as the empty cup was taken back.

"Name?" the boy said after he spoke briefly with his two companions.

It was long forgotten. She had only ever been referred to by number or as a thing. "None," she said as she shook her head.

He frowned, said something to the girl, she said something back, and he repeated, "Name?"

They all looked in surprise. How could she have no name? Everyone has a name.

She was silent as she thought. She could not remember what she had been named. A scene suddenly popped up in her head. It was of when a session had just ended. She was outside, lying collapsed on the ground and staring up and the night sky. A quarter moon shone brightly above.

"Moon," she named herself. He repeated what was doubtlessly the translation to his friends after considering his mini computer for a moment.

* * *

Review and I might be encouraged to update sooner.


	2. Translation

"Why don't we introduce ourselves now?" Danny said.

"Sure."

Danny came forward and pointed at Moon. "Moon," he enunciated.

She looked at him for a moment, then placed a hand on her chest to indicate self and repeated, "Moon."

He placed a hand on his chest to once again indicate self and said, "Danny." After a few tries, she got the pronunciation right.

"Sam," the girl said. That name was easier.

Finally, the dark skinned boy said, "Tucker."

Moon repeated all the names back to make sure she remembered them all. "Moon, Danny, Sam, Tucker," she said, indicating the owner of each name. They all nodded and smiled.

"Now what?" Danny said.

"Sammy!" someone called from downstairs.

"I'll be right back," Sam said as she fled the room to go greet her grandmother.

Moon shifted on the bed to place her feet on the floor. Carpet under her toes was an unusual feeling, so she bent down to touch it with her fingers. It was very soft carpet, and very unfamiliar.

"Carpet," Tucker named the flooring in his own language.

"Carpet," Moon repeated back.

Things suddenly went downhill, and quickly. Moon felt a familiar tingle on her scalp. It was her ghost sense. There was a ghost behind her. Though she did not notice, blue mist escaped Danny's mouth in a soft gasp.

"Ghost," Danny told Tucker, who was watching Moon.

"You have a thermos right?"

"Yeah, there's on in my backpack." Danny left with a thermos retrieved from the backpack sitting in the corner of Sam's room where he had left it. Once in the hallway, he became Phantom and flew intangibly through the house to fight whoever it was now.

Moon pulled an about-face when another ghost suddenly appeared behind her. And it was close, much closer than the other. And it was powerful. But it didn't seem to want anything to do with her. She followed its progress through the house and out by keeping the new tingly spot centered in her forehead. It didn't even come in the same room that she was in. Odd. What was going on now? Though scared that she might attract attention, she went to the window and looked outside. All the while, Tucker watched her.

Tucker paid close attention to Moon's actions. She seemed to know exactly where Danny Phantom was because she had spun around to face him at what was probably the same moment that he became his ghost half. Then she followed him as he went outside. She seemed to have some kind of ghost sense, one different than Danny's. Then she went to the window and watched the short fight that ensued. She didn't even twitch when Sam returned. Didn't seem to be aware that she had returned at all.

Moon's attention was riveted on the two ghosts. The stronger one was clad in black and white with white hair and green eyes. The first one that had appeared was wearing what seemed like a dock worker's uniform, overalls, gloves, etc. This is a very strange place. Then the strong one captured the weak one in a metal cylinder and flew back into the house. When it was nearby, though not as close as first, it inexplicably vanished. She noticed that Sam had returned. Danny came back into the room with the same cylinder that the powerful ghost had had. She stared at it.

Tucker told them about Moon's reactions while the others were gone. She seemed to have an advanced ghost sense, because she knew when the Box Ghost had appeared, when Danny had become Phantom, and had seemed to follow Danny's flight out of the house.

"She probably is the halfa," Danny said after Tucker told them everything. "Since she has a ghost sense and all."

"Yeah, but what do we do about it?"

-One Week Later-

Moon was in Sam's room sketching. She turned out to be quite the good artist and even used drawings for communication. Sam had managed to keep her hidden from her parents, but she told her grandmother, because she can trust her and can't always rely on Danny and Tucker.

During the past week, Sam had forced her vegetarian diet on Moon, and she seemed perfectly content, which made Sam happy. In truth, Moon was more than relieved that Sam hadn't fed her any meat. It made her think of past experiences, all of them unpleasant, some involving small animals.

Also to Sam's approval, Moon hadn't shown any desire to wear anything other than black. Oddly, most of her sketches had been black and white as well, though she occasionally used the colored pencils provided.

Sam was sitting on her bed reading, occasionally glancing over at Moon's sketch pad. Up until now she had only drawn objects. On the current page, an outline of a person was clear. Briefly, Sam wondered who it would be of. One of them? Or maybe someone from her past. Or no one in particular. She would find out eventually.

Sam was drawn from this line of thought when the doorbell rang, followed by her grandmother calling her from downstairs. Moon glanced up briefly when Sam left the room and resumed sketching, virtually uninterrupted.

A familiar run approached from the stairs and Sam returned. Moon didn't even glance up this time. Sam immediately got on her computer and opened a chat with her two greatest friends.

"Danny, Tucker, it came! You want to come over?"

"I'll be there in two minutes!" Danny said, and he signed off.

"Me too. I want to see how well it works. I heard it's the best, but…" The techno geek also signed off.

True to form, Danny flew in through the wall exactly two minutes later while Tucker, whose house was closer, rang the doorbell seconds after Danny's appearance.

"Well, open it," Tucker said once he was in Sam's room with everyone else.

Sam sliced the packing tape with a small knife—it was a decorative letter opener that worked well for this purpose—and exposed something wrapped in thick plastic. This was unceremoniously removed to reveal a handheld electronic dictionary.

The dictionary had been Sam's grandmother's idea; it would translate Russian to English and back with the pronunciation guides for every word. The instructions were, of course, in English and Russian. They cut the Russian half off and handed it to Moon, who set aside her sketchpad and drawing utensils and proceeded to read it. When she realized what it was, she grinned and looked up at Tucker, who was installing batteries.

The first thing she did when she finally held it in her hands was type in a set of Russian characters and read out the translation: "Thank you."

Moon played with the device for a while, looking up the translations for things like book, floor, sky, sun, paper, etc., and Sam, Tucker and Danny talked. When she was done, she set it aside and resumed sketching. The figure on the page was now defined as male, but there were no details indicating who it would be.

Tucker took up the e-dictionary and played with it, taking turns with Danny and Sam. The first thing Sam did was point at Moon's sketchpad and ask, _"Who?"_

Moon took the proffered e-dictionary and, after translation, said, "Stranger," indicating that she didn't know who she was drawing. She handed back the device and picked up a pen so she could start inking in the outline.

* * *

From now on, anything said in Russian will be italic. Just so you know. Review please! 


	3. Drawing

Thanks to all my reviewers; Twilight-Phantom66, Karimlan di Sindihan, May5000, and gearsofhalo! I didn't think people would like "Moon" this much. Here's chapter 3 now!

* * *

For the next few days, Moon was not without her sketchbook. Sam found this curious, but no matter how she tried, she never caught another glimpse of who the drawing was of.

Moon just couldn't leave the drawing alone. For some reason, she had the strange desire to do a very good job, so she was spending extra time on the details. She even did a background, which was unusual for her, and used an entire double-ended sharpie in the process.

They were both in Sam's room again. Sam paused from her net game, sensing that something had changed and looked around until her eyes settled on Moon. She was just sitting there, staring at her drawing pad (which was angled just a little to far for Sam to see what was there). She was tapping the eraser end of a pencil on the edge of the pad and wore a look of puzzlement upon her face. Ten minutes later, she grinned without warning, snatched a colored pencil (a bright green one), filled in a small spot on the open page, and dropped all drawing utensils currently in her hand.

"Finished," she declared, one of the first words she had memorized from the language of her friends.

Sam's curiosity had not gone unnoticed. It also happened to be the reason why Moon had held off revealing the work-in-progress. Now she looked up at Sam, and had her full attention.

Sam was wondering why she had made Moon's drawing out to be such a big deal in her head. Honestly, the suspense in the room was so thick; it might as well be tangible. Moon took a different grip on her sketchpad, what could be recognized as her show-and-tell grip, and held it up. Then she turned it around.

Except for two circles of green, the picture was entirely black-and-white. The shading had been done so carefully that what appeared either wholly white or wholly black—and was so in reality, for this was a real person, and one Sam knew quite well—was not. Around his feet was a ring of light, and this had affected shading as well. The background was entirely black, but done so that it did not overwhelm the person, falling back behind him instead. And, as the only source of color, his eyes seemed to glow on the paper. But enough with the details; the picture was of Danny Phantom.

Moon watched the expressions cross Sam's face. First was surprise, followed closely by recognition, and then adoration and a flicker of something else that disappeared in an instant. She held the cause of these emotions out to Sam and she took it in her hands.

"Saa-aam, helloo-ooo. You still there?" Danny's voice called from the earpiece Sam was wearing.

"I think she's AFK," Tucker's voice came next.

Sam returned to reality. "Sorry guys. I got distracted. But guess what? Moon finished her sketch."

"Really? Who's it of?" Danny responded.

"Why don't you come see? She did a really got job."

"Why can't you just tell us?" Tucker whined.

"Alright, but you should still see it. She drew you, Danny."

"Me? Why would she draw-"

"Danny Phantom," Sam interrupted.

There was a pause in which none of them said anything. Then came the sound of something—or someone—falling over and a door slamming shut.

"Sorry, Sam, what was that?"

"What happened?"

"My parents just finished repairing to boo-merang, new and improved. Of course it came upstairs to find me. But you were saying something else, Sam. What was it?"

"Moon drew Phantom," Tucker informed his friend before Sam had the chance to speak again.

"Really?" Another pause. "Oh, hey, I'll come by in a few minutes to see. I need to take care of Lunch Lady first." Danny signed off.

* * *

I know that it's short, but I was encouraged by the reviews. So review! Please.


	4. Darkening Future

Moon was adjusting to all the ghost appearances. Now she could all but ignore the tingling that was the manifestation of her ghost sense. She was also slowly learning English. Because of this, she had been allowed to go outside more often, as long as Sam, Danny, or Tucker was with her. She had been to Tucker's house a few times now, and she liked it. It was large enough for the occupants to have space, but not so needlessly large as Sam's house.

Today she would finally get to go to Danny's house. His parents weren't home, so it was deemed safe. If she was the halfa Danny had seen on that first day—they were pretty sure but she had never actually showed any signs of being one, other than a ghost sense—there was a danger of her being detected on the ghost equipment like Danny was on a regular basis.

Moon walked behind Sam and Tucker as they approached the Fenton household. Danny opened the door before Tucker could knock.

"Hey, guys! Come in. Mom and dad shouldn't be home for a few hours, so we should be okay."

Sam and Tucker walked in. Moon was too busy staring up at the ops center to notice, and Sam had to pull her inside so Danny could shut the door.

Everyone sat on the couch in the living room. A moment later, Jazz came bounding in. "Hi," she said. She walked up to Moon, whom Danny had told her about. _"Hello,"_ she said, hopefully correctly.

Moon smiled up at the unfamiliar redhead who had greeted her in her own language. _"Hello,"_ she responded.

Jazz grinned back, but the grin fell into an expression of puzzlement as a mechanical voice from somewhere under the couch said, "Hello. Fear me."

Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all blinked at each other. Moon, confused, looked from face to face for hints as to what had just happened.

"Danny, I thought you disabled that," Sam said as Danny dug under the couch and found the Ghost Gabber.

"I did. Dad must have repaired it."

Said instrument of mass irritation repeated back Danny's words in an artificial voice with "Fear me" at the end of each sentence. Danny took the batteries out.

"It translated what Moon said," Tucker exclaimed, excited. "She must be the halfa!"

"And unless you want to take her down to the lab, there's nothing you can do about it," Sam pointed out.

Tucker and Danny exchanged looks. Sam saw and she sighed heavily. Jazz shook her head and left the room.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Sam said as she followed Moon, who was being led to the Fenton lab by Danny and Tucker. She went unnoticed, except by Moon, who didn't understand what had been said. "Wait guys." They all stopped at the door to the stairs, which Danny had begun to pull open. "What are we going to do once we're down there?"

Again they exchanged looks. "Well…" was Danny's input. Tucker didn't have any at the moment, as he was busy thinking of a good reason for them to go down to Danny's parents' lab.

Sam provided argument, trusting her instincts that taking Moon down there would not result in a positive situation. "Think about it. We barely know her. Why would we take her down there when she doesn't know you're you and when we haven't actually seen her ghost half? This could blow our cover."

Moon, ignorant of the conversation, had crept up to the door and was peeking down the stairs. She couldn't really see anything because the lights in the room below were off, but there was a faint green glow coming from somewhere out of sight.

The front door was unceremoniously thrown open and Jack Fenton's voice rang through the house as he said, "Kids, we're home!"

Moon backed out of the way as Danny shut the door quickly and the four of them ran to the kitchen to seem inconspicuous.

"Hi mom, hi dad!" Danny greeted his parents in the order they appeared. "Why'd you get back so early?"

"Someone set off the fire alarm," Maddie sighed. "It was just a false alarm, but the convention was cancelled anyway."

Considering whom they were, it was easy to figure what type of convention they were attending.

Jack didn't notice Moon, of course. He walked right past her as he went to the fridge to retrieve fudge. Maddie did notice. "Who's your new friend?"

"She's Moon, a Russian exchange student," Sam thought up quickly.

"Well, hello there Moon!" Maddie smiled at the topic of conversation.

Moon, knowing well enough what was currently occurring, smiled back but said nothing.

"She doesn't really talk much," Sam said. This is a phrase Sam used often and it meant that Moon shouldn't speak in front of present company unless absolutely necessary.

Jack, at the moment appeased by the amount of fudge he had inhaled, blurted, "Guess who was at the convention! Vladdie!" He remained blissfully ignorant of the grimaces on the faces of his son and son's friends. "And guess what! He's coming to stay in Amity Park for a few days!" Danny grew a few shades paler. "Isn't that wonderful?"

"Yeah dad," Danny gulped. "When will he arrive?"

"Tomorrow!"

"Danny, are you feeling okay?" Maddie noticed his son's condition, but of course did not perceive its cause.

"Yeah, I'm fine. We'll…be upstairs."

All four of them fled to Danny's room.

"What are we gonna do if Vlad finds out about Moon?" Danny asked as color returned slowly to his face.

"I don't know. We'll have to keep him away from her." Sam paced.

"How? One of us will have to be with her all the time and Vlad will get suspicious if he doesn't see all of us together."

The blissfully unaware Moon was tapping away at her e-dictionary, playing the English word games that helped her vocabulary and were conveniently installed.


	5. Halfa Trio

I thank all reviewers. I've been rather suprised, actually. I didn't expect to get such positive responses! Thanks! Here's the latest chapter.

* * *

Vlad arrived bright and early the next morning. Sam and Tucker were both absent, guarding Moon and Sam's house while using the Fenton Phones to communicate with Danny.

Moon could sense the tension in the air and ended up sketching an ominous figure that she never detailed because the following interruption occurred.

Moon's ghost sense went off and her head immediately snapped in the direction nearly opposite the one in which Danny and Vlad lay. So it couldn't be either of them.

"Danny, Moon's picked up on a ghost," Sam reported.

"Vlad's here," Danny whispered.

"She's looking in completely the opposite direction. Oh, wait…" Moon was slowly turning her head.

Normally Moon didn't pay this much attention to ghosts, but there was an ominous air about.

"It's heading towards you."

The ghost had drawn close enough to Danny to trigger his ghost sense.

"Got it."

Moon lost the first ghost because it drew too far away. Another appeared briefly, the flare of the ghost boy—she knew he was named Phantom now—appearing, but she couldn't properly orient on him because he was also far away. The only reason she could sense him at all at this range was because his signature had grown familiar with his many appearances and because he was so powerful.

"It was one of Vlad's vultures," Danny soon informed them.

The use of the past tense indicating that the ghost was no longer a problem was apparently lost on Tucker. "Did you catch him?"

You could practically see Danny roll his eyes from Sam's window. "Yes, Tucker. Now back to Vlad." Danny sighed.

That was the only exciting thing that happened all day, which meant that the tension just got worse and worse. It became nearly unbearable by nightfall of the next day. It was the afternoon of day three and Vlad still hadn't done anything. Of course he was plotting, but when would he unleash his plan? They couldn't help but wonder.

Moon's sketch had gone untouched, ignored since it had been tossed to a shelf.

Vlad left with Maddie and Jack in the Ghost Assault Vehicle to go who-knows-where and Danny had been unable to follow because the ghost-related systems had been repaired once again and Danny had not had the chance to disable them.

Everyone was at Danny's house once again because Sam and Tucker hadn't been able to take the tension for another minute. They were in the kitchen because it was nearest to the lab entrance, in case there was an emergency.

Alarms blared to life and announced the presence of multiple ghosts in the vicinity. It only did that when there were more than five. In synchronization, Danny's ghost sense went off and Moon's head began to spin around on her shoulders like an owl's. The house had been surrounded.

"What now?" Danny moaned to himself. Then he said in a more commanding tone, "Down to the lab. Set up the shield and grab some weapons." He immediately ran to another part of the house to grab the nearest thermos and transform unseen by Moon. She homed in on him anyway as he flew from the house.

Sam and Tucker went down to the lab, with Moon in pursuit. They began arming themselves, after activating the shield of course.

Moon froze when she saw what was in the basement. It was a laboratory. With weapons. And a portal. And numerous other terrifying—to her—devices that she shuddered to think about the purposes of.

Sam and Tucker turned to go back up the stairs. They happened to be perfectly lined up, so when Danny Phantom came hurtling through the ceiling, he knocked all three of them near the corner the portal was in.

Vlad floated down. Danny picked himself up. "What have you done with them?"

"They are fighting the ghosts outside, Daniel, of course."

They proceeded to engage in a battle that mostly stayed within the lab. Moon backed into a corner, terrified out of her mind, while Sam and Tucker stood in front of her, though unaware that they were doing so, prepared to help Danny when their chances came.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Moon noticed how powerful the both of them were. Vlad, the more skilled, finally hit Danny hard enough to make him drop his ghost half. He did the same, laughing the way evil guys always do, as he approached Danny, unaware that there were three spectators and not two.

The transformations triggered something in Moon, something she had buried deep within herself after her escape. It had dwelled far in her unconsciousness since she had woken at Sam's house.

Sam and Tucker noticed a faint glow coming from behind them. But the portal wasn't open. It wasn't even that color when it was. And it wasn't behind them either. It was next to them. So what…?

Danny picked himself up from off the ground and leaned against the wall. He happened to look toward Sam and Tucker and focused in on the person behind them instead.

Vlad was about to begin his gloating when he noticed that young Daniel's attention was completely gone from him and riveted on something in the direction of his bizarre friends. Something that was glowing in a ghostly light that did not belong to the portal.

Moon's eyes turned crimson, and her body glowed in a faint crimson light. Memories were rushing back to her in full force, rushing back from the place in her mind that they had been banished to upon her obtaining freedom.

-Flashback 1

A young girl lay in a small cell, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. Behind a Plexiglas wall were a few whitecoats, some holding clipboards and taking notes, others just observing.

-Flashback 2

A young teenage girl was bound to an examination table. But she wasn't human—she had the signature glow of a ghost. She struggled with her bonds and was rewarded with an ectoplasmic shock.

-Flashback 3

The same ghost teen from before, but older, was in a suspension chamber filled with a viscous liquid that was able to support part of her weight with its density. A breathing mask was attached to her face and several nodes connected to wires were taped to her skin. More whitecoats, in the same room as the chamber but up on a ledge, were watching either the chamber's occupant—their precious experiment—or the monitors showing bio/ecto readouts coming from the nodes.

-Flashback 4

The ghost girl had gained freedom and flew out of the building and into the courtyard. The ghost shield was evident, and she couldn't escape. She dodged the rounds emitted from specially developed energy weapons. There was a bright green/white flash.

-Reality

Moon screamed, clutching her head as she made vain attempts to block out the painful memories. With an inner surge of power unprovoked by machines, she transformed. No one saw her clearly because, in a flash of black, red, and silver, she was gone.

* * *

Sorry to disappoint you, but she isn't going to fight Vlad in a sudden show of power and skill. I despise Mary Sues, which is why Moon only gets three special skills. One has already been established, and if you don't know what it is, then I feel sorry that you are so incredibly unobservant. The second power may be shown in the next chapter, or at least hinted at, and no it isn't something stupidly general like fighting. The third one isn't going to show up for a while. So, there you go.

Review! If you want chapter six within a decent amount of time, then review!


	6. Conflict

Yay! I finished chapter six! I know, it didn't seem to take long, but there were issues with this chapter.

* * *

Jack and Maddie had just finished returning all the offensive ghosts to the ghost zone. The job had been over with quickly for two reasons: Maddie's excellent aim and the fact that Jack had remembered to charge the Fenton Bazooka. Maddie gave Jack a cookie for doing a good job. As he munched on it eagerly—it had pieces of fudge baked right in—there was the familiar noise of a ghost running into a ghost shield. They looked in the direction of their house and saw another ghost _inside_ the shield. She—it had a feminine appearance—was obviously trying to get out.

As a ghost, Moon had silver, non-flaming hair. She wore a sleeveless, turtle-necked red shirt, black pants with a red hem, and red shoes that looked more like socks than anything. Two silver bands about an inch wide were around her arms, just above the elbow. From them hung the continuation of sleeves of her red shirt.

She had immediately flown outside in attempt to escape and run straight into the ghost shield. That wasn't there before… She picked herself up off the ground and stared down the barrel of a gun. A disturbingly large gun, the interior of which glowed green with a freshly charged round.

"Don't move, ghost," Maddie threatened.

Moon had already frozen in place, so there was no need for the warning, which she hadn't understood anyway.

Maddie passed through the ghost shield with the ease of a human and kept herself ready to fire at point-blank range if she should have to. Strangely, this ghost had done absolutely nothing. Even that cursed Phantom would be flying around by now.

Danny and Vlad, who were both hovering invisibly and watching the scene, had been thoroughly distracted from their fight. Danny was merely worried, but Vlad was of course plotting to see how he could get this new halfa under his control.

"Who are you?" Maddie peered curiously through her goggles at the ghost before her.

Moon, who understood this question, was too terrified to speak. She trembled under the gaze of the four visible ghost hunters—Sam and Tucker had finally come outside—and two invisible halfas.

Danny decided to spare his new friend from being fried, so he swooped down behind his parents and yelled, "Hey! Over here!" When they looked over for the source of the familiar voice, he appeared and waved innocently.

"Phantom!" Maddie said in a surprised voice.

Moon didn't care that it was Danny who distracted the two ghost hunters, only that they were distracted. She took advantage of it by zooming around the corner of the building.

Maddie saw the new ghost take off and fired off a few shots, but it was gone too quickly for her to aim properly. So she set her focus on Phantom, who continued to hover for exactly 2.3 seconds before sinking intangibly into the ground and disappearing.

Danny found Moon cowering behind his house next to the dumpster. She looked like she wanted to turn invisible. But she was a ghost, so why didn't she? He approached slowly.

Tremors consumed Moon's body as she sat and tried to hide. That ghost, Danny Phantom aka Fenton (how did she not figure this out sooner?—it was obvious, now that she thought back on it) was approaching. She was pretty sure that Fenton was good—he had helped take care of her after all—and his ghostly alter ego seemed to be good as well, but can she really trust him? He was a ghost. All the ghosts she had met before now had been bent on her destruction. That's why she ran and hid. She always ran, whether she could hide or not.

Phantom was trying to talk to her. What was he saying? Moon tried to focus her ears on something other than her pounding heart—or the silence that replaced it while she was a ghost anyway. That aching silence—she hated it. But what was he saying?

"Moon," Danny called softly, trying not to scare her off. "Moon."

Oh, her name. That's what he was saying. He didn't seem so bad. He had always been so nice. But he was a ghost! While Moon had her introspective war, the tremors were lessening in intensity. Danny took this as a sign that she was calming down.

"Moon," he smiled at her.

She looked up at his face—since she had been staring at his shoes up 'till now. It was a friendly face, not an evil one. _"Trust him!"_ she shouted at herself. _"Just because he's a ghost doesn't mean…"_ Finally decided—at least for now—she stood up and did not run.

The Fentons, however, did run. Right around the corner to come face to face with Moon and Phantom. For a moment, they stopped in surprise. Why had they not run farter?

Danny thrust his hand out to Moon. "Take it!" he said, glancing at her and then switching his gaze to his unknowing parents. She took it after hesitating a moment. What now?

Danny went intangible just as Maddie and Jack recovered and fired upon their son and the exchange student they had met before. He flew back into the house dragging an apprehensive hybrid behind him and landed in the lab. There he changed back and tried to tell Moon to do the same. All she did was look at him curiously.

"Inside the house!" Maddie shouted as if she were going to war. She and her husband barreled back inside. Sam and Tucker, who had dodged out of the way just in time, followed.

Vlad watched all of this while floating invisibly above. He hadn't gotten what he wanted, but he had gotten something else with quite a bit of potential. Possibly even more potential than Daniel. He floated down to the empty street and transformed unseen. After passing through the barrier with ease, he got back in his car conveniently parked just down the street. The skulking Skulker obediently drove away.

Down in the lab, Danny finally managed to convey his request to Moon to transform back by saying, "Human, not ghost," gesturing to himself, and then gesturing to her. She shut her eyes and concentrated.

Maddie, Jack, Sam and Tucker arrived at the lab to see Moon sitting in a corner of a heavily damaged lab and Danny closing the ghost portal.

"Danny? Are you okay, sweetie? What happened? You aren't hurt, are you?"

"I'm okay, mom," he reassured her. "Phantom and that other ghost are in the ghost zone now." The industrial sound of doors closing shut seemed to support his claim.

"You fought them off all by yourself? Good job son! Just like a Fenton!" Jack beamed with pride at Danny, completely unaware of Sam and Tucker's loud sighs of relief of escaping detection once again. It wouldn't be until a week later that Jack finally notices that damage done to the lab.

* * *

This chapter seems to be missing something, but I didn't want to wait until I figured out what it was. If any of you think you might know, PM me please! Or, better yet, review! The review button is calling to be pressed! Go on, you know you want to...


	7. Clues

After than little incident, things returned to the way they were. Danny Phantom fought more ghosts, Moon studied English, Tucker, Sam, and Danny went to school, and Danny avoided his parents' inventions.

The three of them tried to get Moon to help Danny with his ghost fighting since another halfa that wasn't bent on his destruction (coughVladcough) would be a big help, but she wouldn't even transform again. Whenever the topic came up, Moon seemed to become much more nervous, so cautious that it could be called paranoia if it lasted longer, and . . . almost afraid. Why would she be scared? Whenever they asked, she would shake her head vigorously and say nothing. If only they could communicate better, then she might talk to them.

One day they got an unexpected clue to her past in a ghost fight that went irritatingly wrong.

Danny had beaten Technus into Sam's Fenton thermos (he forgot his) when the GIW showed up in their jet. They attacked, of course. Or, one of them did. But then his partner stopped him and got on the loudspeaker.

"Phantom. Give us information and we won't attack you."

'_Well, this is a change of pace,'_ the young hybrid thought to himself. "What do you want to know?" he said with a definite guarded tone.

"Do you know anything about an escaped ghost experiment?"

"Experiment?"

"A Russian ghost experiment is reported to have escaped to the US. Have you seen any sign of it?"

'_They must be talking about Moon. But, "Experiment"?'_ Danny sighed. "After everything you've done, you expect _me_ to tell _you_ about a foreign experiment? Even if I knew anything, I wouldn't tell you!"

Below, Sam and Tucker were exchanging looks. Moon, who was dragged along for every fight in hope that she would transform again and help Danny, was shivering. She had a bad feeling.

Danny saw a third person appear in the cockpit of the mini-plane. Astonishingly, he wore a dark suit, possibly navy blue, instead of the typical white. His skin was pale—what could be seen of it—and he wore a strange hat. He seemed to be holding something, a metal object about the size of Tucker's PDA but thicker. What could that be? After saying something to the two pilots, he disappeared back into the main section of the fuselage. The GIW returned their attention to Danny with irritated looks on their faces.

"The experiment is in the area! Where are you hiding it?"

The shock on Danny's face was poorly concealed. _'How did they know? That other guy must have had a scanner or some kind of detection equiptment! There must be a beacon or something on Moon… How could we get rid of that? No, I need to worry about that later.'_ "I'm not hiding any _experiment_," Danny spat out.

"Fine. We shall use excessive force to recover it since you will not cooperate."

Danny rolled his eyes and brought up a shield with a lazy wave of his arm to block the missiles that were fired at him. He emphasized a yawn and then floated in a battle-ready position before the hovering aircraft. His green eyes flashed challengingly.

After a few choice hits and lots of flying around, Danny had downed the jet. From its smoking metallic corpse emerged the two GIW pilots, suits slightly charred, and the dark-suited man whose hat was smoking. It was thrown off and stomped on briefly.

"It's somewhere over there," the foreign GM indicated Sam, Tucker, and Moon. Then he walked away, probably to find a new move of transport. A black limo, or something equally ominous. That, and he didn't want to participate in the inevitable conflict.

Danny didn't really have to do much. The GIW may have fancy weapons—though none, with the exception of the missile (potentially), were as effective as the ones his parents created—but they had a strict regulations concerning the state of their attire. After a bit of splattering with mud and other assorted items of hygienist horror, their superior officer magically appeared to haul the two of them off for cleanliness infringement. Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Moon were, of course, gone by the time said officer arrived.

They were all in Sam's room later, discussing the day's events.

"So she's some kind of experiment? And she escaped?" Tucker was open-mouthed in surprise.

"No wonder she hates the lab. She must have been tortured," Sam said with horrified awe.

"I wonder how she escaped…" Danny commented.

* * *

If I like you enough (i.e. if you review enough) I might post soon. I'm going to become very busy and will have little time to write fanfiction, so…you get the idea.

GM means Government Man, for those who didn't know.


	8. Remembrance

You knew it was coming…

* * *

Moon had understood, basically, what the conflict was about. It had been about her, "the experiment." That night she had dreams. Nightmares. Recollections of the past.

_The emaciated human girl sat in her crate-like cage quietly crying to herself. Her dark hair was matted and so dirty that its true color could not be discerned in the poor lighting. Though, it was hard to tell in proper lighting also. Caked dirt made her moon-pale skin seem much darker than it was, though it could not disguise the bruises and scabs. Though malnutrition made her look younger, her age could be determined at around 17 years if she were properly examined. A mere visual inspection would tell you she was fourteen, maybe younger_

_This pitiful sight sat sobbing in a shadowy corner for a long time If you listened carefully, you could hear her talking to herself. "Why me?" she would repeat, with the occasional call of, "Mother. Father."_

_An ominous clang resounded, and footsteps echoed down the hallway. The girl's head snapped up and she saw a twisting, tortured shadow that grew bigger with every step. It shouldn't have been possible, but she managed to cower even further into her corner. 'Not me, not me,' she chanted within her mind._

_But, inevitably, it was her. She knew it was going to be her, but as the legs and torso came to a halt in front of the bars of her cell, her fears were reaffirmed, almost as if there had been a shred of hope left. But that wasn't possible… All the hope had been tortured out of the pitiful being long ago._

_There was a faint beep, and the bars—which seemed to glow faintly green if you stared at them long enough—withdrew into the floor, leaving no sign of their existence. There weren't even holes in the floor or ceiling of the cell._

_The man bent down and reached inside the cage. Though his hair was revealed to be short, brown, and slightly curly, his face was in shadow and no features could be discerned. _

"_Stupid experiment," he muttered. She was too far for him to reach her the way he was. "Come here, or I'll use the leash," he threatened. Despite this, she remained stationary. "Fine," he growled, and he pulled what appeared to be a nightstick from a large pocket. One end had a hole about the size of a penny in it—it was that which he pointed at the girl. With the press of a button, a green, rope-like substance shot out and twined about her neck. She was dragged, kicking though not screaming, out of the dark hole in which she spent so much time._

_As threat of asphyxiation pushed her down the hallway, she glanced around at the familiar sight of multiple cells—stacked two high, dark, sometimes barred—that lined the hall. She and the man went through the opaque glass door at one end of the hall and bright lighting blinded her._

_For several moments, she did not see to where she was being led. When she was stopped, a rough hand grabbed her ankle and pulled it out from under her, unbalancing her so much that she would have fallen if it had not happened before. A metallic cuff, before now unnoticed, was removed from her person, and a both familiar and unwelcome energy surged up in response._

_The not-so-human girl's eyes throbbed in pain briefly, and then they focused, bringing her vision back much faster than normal. Her eyes, now an ominous red, glowed malevolently, almost like the heart of a flame._

_The leash on her neck—now that her energy restraint had been removed, the green strand seemed to burn her skin where it touched—was gently yanked. The whitecoats, as she had dubbed them, had been discussing her fate for the day, and she had not been paying attention._

"_Come. Lab 5 today," her keeper repeated._

_She thought of lab five, bare except for an examination table and a needle tray. And a blindingly bright light. Mentally she moaned. The foreign energy inside her seemed to understand, remarkably, and it rebelled. Red light consumed her body, rising as if in a scan chamber, leaving behind a ghostly existence of black, red, and silver._

"_Do not misbehave." There was another yank on the collar, this time much harder._

_What was wrong with her today? She had been broken, so she usually complied with commands to avoid punishment. Why did she now rebel?_

_Another button on the handle of the leash was pushed and electricity arced down and into the hybrid experiment. She snarled with the baring of vampiric teeth and snapped the ectoplasmic cord with a sudden jerk. It dissolved away, and alarms rang out, activated by an observer._

_The not-so-pitiful hybrid went from standstill to high speed flight down twisting corridors in a fraction of a second. A minute later, she was free of the compound. She came to a halt just in time to avoid the ghost barrier that had appeared the moment the alarms had been triggered. She pulled an about-face and gazed down at the compound, wondering what to do now._

_She had never learned how to go invisible or intangible, so she could not hide. All she could do was run, but she could not go through the barrier. She didn't know how to control her transformations either; they were always induced._

_Strangely, her mind went blank without warning, her attention caught by the sight below. A sprawling compound was barely distinguishable from her current height because everything was heavily blanketed in snow. It was northern Russia after all, and nearly mid winter. The snow falling harmlessly through the ghost barrier glimmered tauntingly._

_People began to run out of the compound and were firing ecto-rounds at her. She darted about, a red and black blur—her silver hair was indistinguishable from the gray sky above—with only one thought in her head. 'Must escape!'_

_There was a green flash and her eyes were drawn to a swirling green vortex that hovered just below the apex of the ghost shield. 'Where did that come from?' The hybrid stared in wonder, momentarily distracted. She had also stopped moving, and the burn of a ecto-round hitting her skin jolted her back into motion._

_She did not know who had created it, or where it led, but she knew it would take her away from the compound, and that was all that mattered. She shot toward it and went through and it snapped shut behind her, leaving the plane of this reality uninterrupted once again._

_For a moment she was in a vast realm full of ectoplasmic energy, but she went straight through another portal that had appeared directly in her path and returned to the human world._

_She was flying high, over trees green and fresh, not snow-covered like she was used to._

'_Where am I now?' she wondered briefly. The need to continue flying, fast and far, overrode any desire to sightsee, and completely took over her mind. For hours she did just that, unknowingly moving north rapidly._

_The surge of energy, completely spent, began to fail. With it went her consciousness. She was losing altitude, despite how she tried to fight it and continue flying. Her vision began to fail once again. If she had been properly fed, she might have been able to last longer on the unnatural energy burst. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was quickly rising buildings and a tingling that indicated a nearby ghost, something stronger that anything she had ever encountered before. She didn't even remember crashing._

Moon gasped, suddenly awake. She instantly knew that the strange dream was how she had escaped to this place, Amity Park. She hadn't been able to recall the even ever since she woke in Sam's room.

As the sun rose, she wondered who had created the portal for her to escape.

Far away, in another plane of existence, a time-keeping ghost watched the same event, switching to a present-view of the hybrid herself.

"They will come after her," said an Observant, a large eyeball wearing a cloak.

"Phantom and she will be in danger," said another.

"I know," responded Clockwork as he switched from aged to young. "I know everything, after all."

"The young—" the first Observant was cut off by Clockwork.

"They will survive, intact and undiscovered." He became middle-aged.

As the two Observants left the mysterious time-wielding being, the time portal switched to a view of a potential future, one where the two hybrids fought side by side with the aid of their two trusted, wholly-alive, human friends.


	9. Games

Look who's back! Finally!

* * *

Games

* * *

Sam wasn't sure what woke her, but the dawning sun wouldn't let her go back to sleep. Normally her curtains blocked out a majority of the light, but the angle of the sun happened to be just perfect this morning. After cursing at whatever had caused her to wake and at the sun which wouldn't allow sleep to return, she noticed Moon.

Moon was also awake, sitting ramrod straight, with a peculiar expression on her face. It was a mixture of shock, revelation, curiosity, hatred, and worry. Sam also noticed that there was a light sheen of sweat on Moon's forehead.

_That must have been one bad nightmare_, Sam mentally commented.

Moon noticed Sam was looking at her and turned her head to look directly at her with an expression of puzzlement.

"You okay?" Sam broke the silence.

After too long a pause, Moon nodded. She didn't usually speak in the morning, but if she had, her voice would have wavered as if she were unsure of herself.

"Bad dream?"

Moon did speak this time. Odd. "Not a dream."

_This seems to be important to her_, Sam considered.

"What's wrong then?"

"A…" Moon thought for a moment, searching for the right word in English. "A memory."

Sam waited patiently, silently prodding the Russian hybrid to continue with her expression.

"Of how I came here. How I escaped. Where I was before." Before the memories had been fuzzy, but now she could remember everything clearly. Not just that she hated her past, but why.

Sam was very interested now. The gap in Moon's memory had been a topic of interest for the three of them, but it had passed to the back of their minds because it had showed no signs of repairing itself.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" In the back of her mind, Sam thought this was rather odd for her since she was, after all, a Goth. But she also knew that this would help Moon in the long run. She reads quite a bit.

Moon nodded and was silent for a moment, collecting herself for a long (for her) speech in a language she was still learning. (But she was learning quickly. Sam had given her simple English games to work on when she wasn't doing anything else—meaning she did them often. Also, the best way to learn a language is to go to the country where the language is spoken. People do need to survive.) Over the next twenty minutes, she managed to relay the entire dream-memory, piece by piece (with context and explanations included) to Sam.

Sam's reaction, after a moment of stunned silence and dawning understanding at Moon's behavior, was to say, "That's a terrible place! I'm so glad you got away. No one should have to suffer like that." (Since when was Sam so...so…girly? Maybe it was the fact that she now hung out with a girl instead of just two guys all the time.)

Moon still seemed unhappy. "I know what you need!"

Moon, who had turned her head away, looked back up at Sam with a shadow of interest. She really wasn't in the mood.

"Games!" Sam said.

Moon turned away again. The last thing she wanted to think about was words.

Sensing Moon's displeasure—and the reasoning behind it—Sam added on, "Not those kind of games, arcade games!"

Arcade? Moon had heard that word before. Often, when it was mentioned, all three of them would go down to the lower levels of Sam's house and play on the large machines with flashing screens. They looked like they were fun—everyone else certainly enjoyed them—but Moon had never gotten up the courage to try, using the excuse of a lack of understanding English.

Before she could protest, Sam got up and dragged Moon down to her private arcade gallery. After a simple explanation, Moon was playing Pac man, quickly becoming proficient. (She achieved the high score, but that was only because no one else bothered playing since there were more exciting games to be played elsewhere—like Doomed.)

Before she knew it, Moon was cheered greatly. She stopped playing around eight o'clock so she could eat, and then she did some sketching and word games, but she resumed in the afternoon.

Sam, pleased with her success at distracting Moon, told Danny and Tucker about the dream that was really a memory.

Danny appreciated the forewarning. He'd had a feeling that the last fight with the GIW and that one foreigner was a mere precursor to something worse, but now he had stronger evidence. "Why" had been resolved, but what about "when"? When would they try again, and what would they do? The nagging worry persistently gnawed at the three of them. Three, because Moon had been distracted with Pac Man, though no one was sure how long that would last.

* * *

Yeah, it's short. At least I finally updated, right?


	10. Complications

Well, it has been a very long time. But I have an update. Things should get a little more interesting.

* * *

Several months passed and Moon gained an adequate understanding of English that enabled her to function independently in society, though she rarely did so. Her grades in school were just as dismal as Danny's, except for art, which she excelled in. Nothing interesting happened in the intervening months until early March, when Tucker's family had surprise visitors.

Tucker and Danny were on the way to Tucker's house to play Doomed on the new consol that Sam had intended to give to him for Christmas. (He only got it recently because the package had gotten so lost in the mail that it was sent to Australia by accident, then Japan, then assorted European countries, before it finally arrived in the USA. Three more weeks were wasted when the thing was sent from coast to coast twice before reaching Amity Park.) Sam and Moon were trailing behind the two boys because Sam was trying to get Moon interested in her favorite music by having Moon listen to her iPod. Moon was only mildly interested because all the music just blended together into the background.

An extra car was parked in the driveway, something only Sam noticed upon arrival at Tucker's house. As soon as Tucker opened the door, his mother reprimanded him for being late.

"I told you we would be having visitors, I told you a week ago!"

"But mom, you didn't tell me anything about visitors." (She actually had forgotten to tell him this time instead of the usual case where Tucker isn't paying attention and doesn't listen, remember, or notice.)

"Oh, you brought your little Russian friend along?" she said, just noticing Moon in the doorway behind her son. "That's good."

"Why is that good? Not that it would be bad, but…"

"Our visitors are the Chenkovs, of course!" (The 'v' at the end is pronounced as 'ff'.)

"Aren't you going to let them in, honey?" Tuck's father said from within the sitting room.

"Of course, come in, come in!" she said with a shooing motion. The five of them went to the sitting room.

Upon Moon's entrance, the Chenkovs looked at her curiously.

"Hello, Tucker. And Sam and Daniel, yes?" Tucker's two friends had met the Russian couple once before.

"Hi Mr. and Mrs. Chenkov," the trio said almost simultaneously. Tucker introduced Moon. "This is Moon, a Russian exchange student."

"_Hello, _Moon."

_"Hello, Chenkovs."_ Moon said shyly, caught off-guard at meeting other Russian speakers.

_"This is quite a coincidence. Where in Russia did you live?"_

_"The North."_

Moon became very obviously uncomfortable and, though no one else knew what was being said, an interruption was in order.

"So, have you heard any more interesting stories from traveling?" Tucker asked. The Chenkovs are travelers and they always have a few new interesting stories to tell, if not old favorites.

There was a beep from the kitchen. "Dinner's ready!" Tucker's mom reacted. "Would any of you like refreshments? Water, milk, root beer, orange juice?" Moon opted for the juice, the three others for soda, and the Chenkovs already had drinks.

"Son, if you'd come help me please..." Tucker followed his mother obediently into the kitchen.

Moon wanted to hide. Or leave the house. Or at least leave the room. The Chenkovs were _watching_ her. Like the whitecoats did almost. They had that same look in their eyes, though it was gone whenever they looked at anyone else.

After the dinner, which was more of in informal snack-fest with numerous good side dishes, Sam managed to get Moon alone and ask what was wrong with her and why she looked so nervous.

"They watch. Like hungry wolf at small rabbit. Like I be food." Moon's expression was one of nearing panic. "Please us leave soon?" Moon's communication skills aren't as good as normal when she gets really stressed like this. Sam hadn't noticed any _looks_ on the part of the Chenkovs, but she promised Moon anyway that they'd leave soon anyway and then they returned to the main room.

Only a few minutes passed, enough to be inconspicuous, and Sam noticed the hungry looks that the Chenkovs had whenever they looked at Moon. Everyone was as oblivious as Sam had been before Moon brought it to her attention.

Sam stood from her seat on the couch next to Moon and announced, "We should probably be leaving now. We have a book report to finish for school tomorrow." Moon stood also. Danny freaked. (There really was a book report.)

"I completely forgot! Tucker?"

"I kinda did it already, actually..."

"Well, we're sorry to see you leave so soon, but since you have work to do," Tucker's dad said, also standing up.

Danny, Sam, and Moon all rushed out with Tucker, who wanted to say goodbye before they left. He couldn't leave with them after all, not while guests were over. Sam told him quickly, "Something's weird with them, Tucker. They kept watching Moon like predators. Be careful."

"Bye guys!" Tucker waved them off, acting normal and thinking about the goth's words.

Sam also told Danny as they walked quickly towards Sam's house.

"Why do you think they'd be doing that?" Danny asked once Sam had finished.

"It's too extreme for her just being a fellow Russian. Moon, what'd they ask you at the beginning that made you so uncomfortable?"

"Where I came from. I said the North because not know anything else."

"Is that all?"

"They ask nothing else."

Danny and Sam both got a bad feeling about the whole situation. It just seemed wrong, though they couldn't get any more specific than the predatory watching.

Moon couldn't sleep that night and ended up listening to Sam's iPod, only falling asleep once the sun had come up.

* * *

Review please! I'm sorry for taking so long. May testing is evil. Reviews are good!


	11. Teaching

Please enjoy this chapter.

* * *

_"Madame, we have a message from our agents in the American ghost town. The same place Seeker was led to when tracking the Experiment. They think they came in contact with It."_

_"That is good news," _said the woman at the desk, Madame. _"Gather the retrieval squad. When everything is prepared, return to me."_ Madame smiled, though her eyes were empty of any joy.

* * *

The Chenkovs had left abruptly, only staying a single day after encountering Moon. They had gotten the message from North and met with Seeker after his failed mission before his plane trip, so they knew about the Experiment being in the area. When they saw Moon, the supposed 'exchange student,' they were confident she was the target. After leaving the Foley household, they contacted North and were given orders to stay in the area.

* * *

Moon was sketching again, taking up charcoal and pencils in stead of the usual educational word games. She drew a landscape of the facility she had been contained in from when she saw it just before escaping with all the people like little ants running around on the ground and the ghost shield. She didn't show where the portal appeared. It took a few days, and Sam asked what the place was.

"It is where I was. Place of experiments and white-coat people."

"Whitecoats? You mean doctors? Scientists?"

"Yes. Bad people."

Sam showed the drawing to Danny and Tucker and explained. Tucker said he might be able to find the region in northern Russia from off the Internet and ended up keeping the picture.

After the landscape, Moon drew an anonymous white-coat with the same hungry expression as the Chenkovs.

* * *

Danny and Tucker were both walking together to Sam's house. "So, what do you want to do this weekend? Movie?" asked Tucker.

"Nah, we've seen the latest one three times already. How 'bout the fair?"

"They're still rebuilding after your fight with Technus."

"Still? It's been months, though!"

"Apparently there was extensive underground damage from Technus pulling up cables and stuff."

"Oh."

They reached Sam's house and Sam, who'd been expecting their arrival, opened the door before they could knock.

"Hey, Sam!" Danny said.

"Hi Danny, Tucker."

"We can't figure out what to do this weekend. Do you have any ideas?"

"Movie fest?"

"We did that last time," Tucker said with an almost sigh.

"How about..." They were walking up the stairs when Danny's ghost sense went off. No one else was around to see, or even in the house at all, so Danny transformed into Phantom immediately and flew outside to find absolutely nothing.

He hovered, doing a 360 with thermos in hand, and still found nothing. Sam and Tucker came outside.

"Danny," Sam called out, "we found the ghost."

He floated down to their level to stand on the front steps of Sam's house. "Who is it? Where?"

"Moon. Inside and upstairs."

"Moon? She actually transformed again?"

"Yeah, come see. She's in my room."

They all journeyed up to Sam's room to see ghost-version Moon and got a much better look at her than last time.

Her hair had turned a silvery color, though it was still braided like it usually was and looked like normal hair, like Phantom's. It wasn't flaming, or misty, or anything else ghostly, other than color. Her red shirt fit close to her skin, like Danny's jumpsuit, and was sleeveless with a turtleneck-like collar. From two silver bands around her upper arms came flowing red sleeves that extended to the wrist. The bottom edge of the shirt came down over the top of the black pants, bootleg style so they weren't close-fit like the shirt was. At the bottom edge of both pants and shirt was a silver hem about an inch wide. There was also a silver choker around Moon's neck at the top edge of the shirt, just under her chin. The red shoes Moon wore that rose up under the pants were so small and close-fitting to the shape of her foot that they looked like socks. Silvery-black soles were on the bottoms of her feet. She had no gloves and Moon's irises had turned a pale red color, one darker and one lighter.

Moon noticed Danny, Sam, and Tucker after they'd had enough time to take in her appearance.

"I think I know what we're doing this weekend now," Sam said, indicating Moon. "Teach her about her ghost half."

"Teach me?" Moon looked up at Sam from where she was sitting on the floor.

"Yeah." Danny took the lead since he was the experienced halfa in the room. "You seem to know how to transform already, but can you do it again for us?"

"Transform?" The word was unfamiliar to Moon.

"Change from ghost to human and human to ghost," Tucker explained. Sam went to sit on her bed, Tucker in her computer chair, and Danny remained standing.

"Like this." Danny demonstrated by transforming himself, to a human and then back into ghost form, which he hadn't shifted out of after reentering Sam's house after the false alarm.

Moon concentrated and the transformation rings, white with a red glow on the edges, overtook her, returning her to a human state. It wasn't as fast as Danny's, who'd had much more practice.

"Yeah," Danny encouraged. "And change back to ghost?"

Moon did so.

"How long have you been a ghost?" Sam asked. She had noticed the speed of Moon's transformation and found it similar to when Danny had just been learning his powers.

"Some years? Not know. Since small, before..uh..."

"Before what?"

Moon crept over to Sam and whispered something in her ear.

"Oh."

"'Oh' what, Sam?" Danny asked.

"Girl things only, Danny."

"It must be that, then. Wait, Sam, if she's our age then--"

"She's been a ghost for a few years before then, too, so much longer than you."

"But it's like she's still new. Why?"

"Experiments. Tests." Moon didn't have much else to say.

"She probably never got the chance to practice, whereas you've been forced to learn your skills quickly. If they spend all their time testing her... And why would you be teaching skill to an experiment that might help her escape?"

"That makes sense. Well, what do you know how to do, Moon?"

"Fly."

"Is that it?"

"Fly fast?" She shrugged.

"No invisibility or intangibility? Or ghost rays?" Danny demonstrated each basic ghostly power as he mentioned it. Though for the ghost ray he only gathered energy at his hands in stead of shooting it at anything. Moon had seen him do the move enough times to figure it out anyway.

Moon kept shaking her head 'no' each time.

"But she did it to get out of the lab that time. The intangibility. And then she came back." Tucker stated, confused.

Sam responded, "That first time was probably unconscious for escape."

"And coming back was me," Danny added.

"Well, why not start with that skill?" Sam suggested.

"How?"

Everyone looked at each other.

* * *

"Alright, Danny, I'm here. Now will you explain? What's this about teaching?"

Because all three had agreed that taking Moon back to Danny's house was a bad idea, they had decided to call Jazz and bring her to Sam's house. She had agreed on the condition that Danny Phantom come get her and fly her back. She was almost never able to convince Danny to take her flying even though he did it with Sam and Tucker almost regularly. He always claimed it was because she wasn't in any physical danger but...

"We need your help," Danny explained, "to teach Moon about her powers."

Jazz realized that Moon was not in different clothing but was actually in her ghost form.

"Oh. But Danny, why do you need me? You're the halfa."

"But I don't know how to teach. My powers were manifesting themselves on their own and I had to learn to control them, not figure out how to use them from scratch."

"Can't you demonstrate?"

"We tried that."

"You turned intangible with Moon? Actually touched her and turned to both of you intangible?"

"No..."

"Try that."

Danny, Sam and Tucker all thought to themselves, _Idiot. How could you not think of this?_

Danny took Moon's hand and told her to concentrate and then went intangible, making her intangible too. He held it momentarily and then dropped it, dropping Moon's hand at the same time. "Helpful?"

"Maybe some." Moon concentrated, staring at her fingers, and they flickered almost intangible for a second before going solid. She tried doing it again but couldn't, so Danny demonstrated again. He had to demonstrate six times before Moon could really remember, and after that it was just a matter of practicing. Moon started just by holding objects and turning her hand intangible so they would fall through her fingers, or by phasing her hand through stuff, like her sketchpad, the table, or the wall.

Moon practiced intangibility that whole weekend almost constantly with an attention much more focused than Danny's who'd just been trying to hide his powers whenever they went off in public. She practiced as a ghost and as a human, so, Monday morning when she was watching Sam getting ready for school, she was able to phase fully and disappeared through Sam's bed, which she'd been sitting on, already ready for school. She phased through the floor as well but managed to rise back into Sam's room the same way, extremely pleased with herself. She did it again, without falling through the floor this time, just for the sake of doing it again.

Sam delivered the good news the Danny and Tucker that morning, immediately when she saw them.

"That's great!" Danny said.

"After you left she kept practicing, all the time."

"No wonder, if that's the case."

The bell rang and the four of them ran to their respective classes.

* * *

_"Madame, I have come to report on the progress of forming the retrieval squad."_

_"Proceed,"_ came the cold voice.

_"Three agents have arrived and all but two have sent a response to the summons. They are on their way."_

_"And the two?"_

_"One is unable to communicate. I contacted another agent in the area to find out the status and all he knows is that he's entrenched in his assignment, which is nearly complete. That's Mister E. The other agent, Mister J, cannot be found. Agents are searching for him but have found nothing as of yet. He may be dead."_

_"And the others have responded and are coming. Excellent. The equipment?"_

_"All the restraining equipment is being prepared. We're on schedule for that."_

_"Good. Notify me if the situations with E and J change. It would be regrettable if J were found dead. What of the Chenkovs? Are they still in place?"_

_"They await further orders, Madame, and have been maintaining surveillance on the three homes and school. They have seen no changes or any indication that the four children are aware. Do you have orders for them?"_

_"No. Tell them to maintain position and report anything unusual."_

_"Yes, Madame."_

Longer chapter! And just a day later! Review please, to maintain the inspiration while the Block is gone.

* * *


	12. Time Ticks Away

Look, another chapter. All my homework ran away because the big scary monster May tests are lurking nearby. I've had time to write again. It amazes me.

* * *

"And who might you be?" Plasmius asked the ghost cowering before him. He'd caught the man in his territory. _This one must be new,_Plasmius reasoned, _if he didn't know that this is my place. He hasn't even chosen a new form yet._

When the other ghost didn't respond, Plasmius growled, "I can make you tell me," and summoned ectoplasmic energy into his hands.

The new ghost's head fell in resignation. Under the threatening gaze of Plasmius, the ghost with a slightly Russian accent folded. On a human, he wouldn't have been bothered. He'd used The Gaze himself; it was part of his job, after all. If you put him in a room with a hundred other people, it was extremely likely that he was more dangerous than everyone combined. But he was in a new place now, a world of ghosts that were all more powerful than him. The ghost that he'd had the misfortune to be captured by seemed more deadly that average, much more than the ghosts he'd encountered before now.

So he confessed and was then placed among Plasmius's other ectoplasmic minions.

* * *

After school that same day, the four of them gathered at Danny's house since his parents were gone on another of those crazy ghost conferences. Jazz was also present, just in case her teaching ability was again necessary. Phantom was floating in a cross-legged position above his chair and Ghost Moon was standing while Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all sat in their chairs.

"So I'll just try turning us both invisible and see if it works like last time," Danny said. He put his hand on her shoulder and vanished from human sight. When they reappeared a few moments later, Moon had an expression on her face like she was lost.

"Well?" Jazz asked the confused-looking ghost.

Moon only shook her head. This was different from turning intangible and not as easy to even understand.

"Well, that's okay. We only realize we're invisible when we suddenly can't see ourselves if Danny doesn't tell us first." Sam tried to bring Moon some small comfort.

"Danny," Jazz started, "can you explain what it feels like to you when _you_ turn invisible?"

"Um..." Danny Phantom then proceeded to vanish and reappear three times. Each time his expression was that of concentration. He was focusing on himself and the conscious awareness of turning invisible, not an easy task considering that it had long ago become a reflex and, thus, an unconscious process.

After the third reappearance, he think he understood. Kinda. "It's like putting on clothes, but all over. It's...really hard to explain. When I turn invisible, I just do; I don't need to think about how."

Moon looked disheartened.

Jazz decided to try. "Turning invisible as a tactic for hiding, right? So what if you just focus on wanting to hide? Wanting to be invisible so no one can find you?" Moon looked up at Jazz, curious at her proposal.

"Yeah! You turn her invisible again while she concentrates on hiding! Maybe that'll work!" Tucker piped up enthusiastically.

Moon looked up at Danny, since he was floating and his head was higher in the air than hers. He put his hand on her shoulder and asked, "Ready?" When she nodded after a moment, he turned them both invisible again.

This time, when he reappeared, she did not. At least, not right away. She reappeared about five seconds of expectant silence later.

"Now you get it?" Danny asked.

"Some," Moon replied. "Hard to stay. Don't know how to bring cover-thing."

"But you can hold it after I do it?" Moon nodded. "Maybe you should concentrate on the...cover-thing...next, instead of on just hiding."

"Focus on hiding first," Jazz clarified, "then, when you're invisible, focus on the invisibility." Jazz looked to her ghostly brother. "Hold the invisibility longer this time so she can focus on it more."

Danny nodded understanding and looked at Moon, who nodded at him, ready for the next try. They disappeared again. For almost three minutes. Danny reappeared and, again, Moon did not. "She pushed my hand off," Danny announced. "I think she might get it this time."

When Moon appeared two feet away from where she had been, they asked again if she understood.

"Can hold it," she explained, "but not make it."

"But you understand how to maintain invisibility?" Jazz wanted to confirm.

"Yes." Moon seemed to think for a moment and then said, "I can maintain invisibility." She pronounced the sentence carefully and everyone was reminded at how she was still learning English. While Moon can understand most of what people usually say to her, her usage of formal sentence structure and vocabulary need work. (Tucker has been caught up in the word games with Moon as well, trying to expand her vocabulary. Danny and Sam both think it's an aftereffect of the educational brainwashing thing that Lancer came up with to prepare his students for that important test during the Ember incident.)

"I can turn us invisible a few more times so you can try seeing how I bring up invisibility," Danny suggested.

"And you can practice maintaining it more," Jazz added.

Tucker and Sam cautiously explored the fridge for food with occasional help from Jazz when the food started attacking. Danny almost interfered when some week-old vicious hot-dogs rose up out of a drawer and started rallying the other animated food objects, including the leftover bean soup from two nights ago. The hot-dogs tried to get the support of an intimidating block of dark fudge, but the fudge had a mini-ghost-food shield designed into the 'fudge plate' (Jack's very own fully and properly functional device that he'd made almost on his own) that made the fudge impervious to any of the hotdogs' actions. Danny did not interfere because, right before he was about to, Jazz found the Fenton Peeler behind a mini watermelon that Maddie had been planning on cutting up upon her return that evening and used it to defeat all the ectoplasm-tainted food. The only down side to defeating the food was that the device caused a green bottle of ranch dressing to explode, which of course got ectoplasm and ranch all over Sam, Tucker, Jazz, the fridge door, and the floor in a radius of approximately four feet. Moon, just outside the blast radius but at the time visible, used her newly learned skill of intangibility while Danny, floating on the other side of the room, laughed his white-haired head off. This irritated the ectoplasmic ranch-covered trio enough to cause them to chase after him and attempt to spatter that black and white jumpsuit of his with the goo. Moon had no hope of concentrating after that since she was focused on trying not to laugh and draw their attention. She couldn't have practiced any more after then anyway because Jack called saying that he and Maddie would be back soon. The five teens were busy cleaning the kitchen until their arrival.

When Maddie came home to a cleaner kitchen than she'd left, she insisted on making dinner for everyone, even after the story of the attacking food had been told and Maddie saw the reduction in refrigerator supplies. All Jack was concerned about was whether his 'fudge plate' shield had held, and he checked almost immediately even after Danny and Jazz both tried to reassure him that it had worked fine.

Moon, Sam, and Tucker each went home after that, with Jazz's quickly whispered words of, "Try making just a small part of you invisible at a time, like your hand. Danny couldn't do it completely right away either," in Moon's ear. Jazz had figured that second part out after retroactive observation of Danny. Like that time he'd walked out of the bathroom from a shower with a towel wrapped around his waist and invisible feet.

It took almost two days and a few more demonstrations by Danny for Moon to finally turn her hand invisible. Once she'd managed that, it was just a matter of turning more of her invisible at a time. She'd turn what she could invisible and then try to stretch it out to cover more of her. Sam got a bad fright on the morning of day four when she saw Moon without her left arm and head. Sam's started reaction surprised Moon out of her partial invisibility. A developing reflex then rendered Moon invisible from the waist up, which she hadn't been able to do yet. Sam also thought it looked really strange to see just a pair of seemingly animate legs.

Despite her determination, it took Moon much longer than Danny to figure out invisibility. Danny had control of invisibility almost immediately. Spontaneous intangibility had been his problem. After two weeks Moon could turn completely invisible with ease. Whenever the four were together in private somewhere, they would randomly tell Moon to go invisible and she would, which gave her the practice she needed without actually involving her in a fight.

Danny's next lesson in ghost skills was simultaneous use of skills. "You can use intangibility and invisibility at the same time," Danny explained to Moon as the four were walking after school. "Intangibility and invisibility are usually used at the same time anyway, since a ghost is visible while intangible and tangible while invisible."

Moon looked confused, so Sam simplified. "People can see you when you're intangible and touch you when you're invisible."

"Yeah, what Sam said," Danny added. "There is a limit to what you can use your powers on, though. Like, you can't turn a whole building invisible, but you can, with practice turn a car or several people invisible. Or intangible."

Moon proceeded to practice using those two skills at the same time, on herself and on other objects. Whether she was flying or not didn't matter, since she tried doing that at the same time also.

Caught up in a big English project, the four didn't have much time for new lessons. Tucker and Sam both wanted Moon to learn how to shoot ghost rays but Danny was too focused on the assignment and his failing grades during that last week to give Moon more than a brief explanation. "Gather energy in your hands and then aim and shoot it. The trigger is mental, but you need to physically aim." The Box Ghost made a convenient appearance and Danny shot him through the open window of his room before using the Thermos to catch the moronic specter. "Like that." The halfa only glanced away from his books and computer screen with a half-typed essay displayed.

* * *

_"Madame. All agents have reported in and are awaiting orders. Mister E has also finished his assignment and arrived only minutes ago. There has still been no word on Mister J. He is presumed dead."_

_"Good. Very good."_ The incredibly malicious smile appeared on Madame's face. _"Inform them of the retrieval mission and start the equipment training program."_

_"Yes, Madame."_

The shadowed door closed behind Mister M, the man chosen to direct the project and report directly to her.

* * *

"What have you to report?" Plasmius asked the ghost before him. His most recent arrival, 'Joseph,' had a most interesting history.

"Plasmius, everyone has arrived at the base and training in new weapons has begun."

"Observe the training and report back to me the capabilities of these new weapons."

"Yes, sir." Joseph promptly vanished back to his post to resume the duty of observation.

One thing that Plasmius was glad for particularly with the new minion was that he didn't have to explain his orders, or even give them more than once. Joseph always carried out his jobs with skill.

* * *

In his clocktower, Clockwork, Master of Time, watched events pass. He was expressionless as his form shifted from grown adult to old man.

* * *

Ooh, new Plasmius minion. What will I ever do with Joseph?

Review! I command it!


	13. Two Days

Plasmius watched the retreating form of Joseph as the ghost went back through the portal before remotely closing the doors. He sat in a chair as he transformed back into Vlad Masters and looked down at the long cylindrical container in his hand that Joseph had delivered. It was all the plans of the North facility's weapons. The cap came off with a pop and several large pieces of paper, all exactly the same size and rolled up together, slid out and unrolled themselves on the table. Masters slid each sheet over as he examined it.

The first showed the design plans of a handgun that had a special battery and could fire ectoplasmic rounds, rather like ghost rays. As Vlad looked at the details in a corner of the page, he saw that the output of the weapon was very weak and wouldn't even do much damage to a ghost as weak as the Box Ghost. An all-around useless weapon seeing as he had already designed and built much more effective devices. The next plan showed another gun, this one designed to shoot capture nets. It was larger and looked rather like a grenade launcher. Also something Vlad had already created a version of. The third sheet had plans of ghost radar that would detect ghosts in the immediate area. Sheet four was a short pole that would shoot ectoplasmic leashes for ghosts, something that Vlad had not, in fact, thought of in some form. He set that one aside in a different pile.

The billionaire continued looking through the plans--also in the pile were a kind of shock device designed specifically for that new halfa to make her transform, assorted shield generators, shields that could be designed into sections of wall, infrared goggles tuned to the ghost spectrum, etc.--and one near the bottom of the pile caught his attention.

"Cheese logs!" he swore in appreciation as he held up the sheet. "This one _is_ interesting."

The half-ghost started laughing to him quietly in malevolent anticipation.

* * *

_"Madame, Mister J is confirmed dead. His remains were found half an hour ago half-buried in the snows outside the location of his last assignment."_

_"Is the team almost ready?"_

_"Training is proceeding as planned and nearly finished."_

_"Estimated time of conclusion?"_

_"Two days."_

* * *

"So, Danny, are you going to teach Moon ghost rays this weekend?" Tucker asked. The pair was, again, walking to Sam's house where she and Moon waited. Moon had wanted to get home really quickly and show Sam something before the boys arrived so she'd gone ghost right after school and flown Sam and herself home. She couldn't turn a whole other person invisible yet, but she went intangible and flew really high so she wouldn't have been seen anyway.

"Probably. What do you think they're planning?"

"I don't know. Guess we'll just find out."

When they arrived at Sam's house and went up to her room, they saw Moon stuffing something out of sight while Sam blocked the view of the two boys.

"What," Tucker whined, "we don't get to know the surprise?"

"No, it's not ready yet," Sam said as she glanced back at Moon to make sure the object was hidden before moving out of the way to allow the pair entrance.

"Yes, well, surprise projects aside," Danny waved his hand as if literally brushing something aside, "I thought I'd teach ghost rays today. They're all pretty much the same, just with different degrees of power. And whether it's a ray or a ball of energy." Danny shrugged at the unimportant differences.

Moon stood at attention.

"Since I would prefer there isn't any destruction of my room, how about we go to the park on the edge of town?"

Five minutes later Sam and Tucker were walking towards the park with what seemed like picnic supplies and most of which actually were picnic supplies. There were two thermoses, one of which was a Fenton Thermos while the other just had orange juice in it. (Sam really wanted orange juice today. She had no real reason.) Danny carried his thermos and Sam had the one with orange juice in it. Danny had flown ahead to scout out a good practice area and Moon was following Sam and Tucker invisibly and intangibly.

Moon, of course, was expecting it, but when Danny's voice came out of thin air to say, "Hey, guys. I found a good place. Just up ahead," Sam and Tucker both jumped in surprise. Moon appeared, causing further surprise because she was behind them, and led them to Phantom using her compass-like ghost sense.

Danny had found a small clearing surrounded by high, thick bushes. The only opening seemed to be the one they'd come through, though that didn't matter to a ghost.

"Okay, so, um, ghost rays or ecto-blasts are something that pretty much any ghost can do. I haven't met any that can't. All you really need to do is focus some of your energy in your hands. Because ectoplasm is an easily-malleable energy form and ghosts are made of it, it's easy enough for them to take some of that and use it like this." Danny shot a small beam of energy from his finger at a knot in a tree trunk. "After you aim, just kinda fire it off. Try gathering some energy from yourself first." Moon looked between Danny and her own upraised hand with confusion. "Like how you activate some energy to turn intangible or invisible, but instead of having it everywhere, consciously gather it to your hand. Or even just a finger."

Moon flickered intangible twice before summoning a faint red glow around her right arm.

"Yeah, but more concentrated, down at your hand."

The faint glow became stronger as it was limited down to just a hand.

"Now, aim at that tree and push the energy away from you and at the tree." Moon raised the palm of her hand up and around to the same tree Danny had fired at. Instead of becoming a beam of ectoplasmic energy like what Danny had done, the red glow seemed to melt back up Moon's arm and vanish. She summoned it again and Danny tried to explain again.

"Imagine it like the main body of energy that is you is shoving out the little bit of extra energy in your hand and shoving it at the tree. Like you're throwing something without actually throwing it."

That confused Moon but she did manage to get the main idea of what Danny had said and fired a successful red beam several inches below the knot that Danny had hit. It was weak, smaller than what Phantom had fired with just his finger, but it was progress. They practiced to remainder of the day with Sam, Tucker, and Phantom all taking turns holding targets and running around, popping in and out of view to give Moon practice aiming and summoning the energy quickly. The ecto beams never got much larger--Phantom never had her try to summon more energy for a blast--but Moon did get faster and more accurate as she adapted to the new ability.

About an hour's time before sunset found Sam, Tucker, and human Danny all sitting in the clearing taking a break and eating some snacks while Moon ran around outside the ring of bushes shooting at the little targets that the trio had set up in order to practice aiming while she was moving.

"GHOST!" Danny, Sam and Tucker all jumped to their feet to find to origin of the scream. Above the trees, almost directly above the clearing, was Valerie in her red suit and on her hover board. She had a gun and was aiming at Moon, who'd stopped running to look around for the person shouting.

Moon caught sight of Valerie almost immediately and recognized that a gun was pointed at her. While Valerie did not recognize Moon--she was actually surprised to have found a new ghost instead of encountering Phantom again--Moon did recognize Valerie in her ghost-hunting gear as someone who should not be harmed and instead avoided. She had been a witness to a few of the fights between the student and Phantom and Danny had later explained about the mysterious huntress to Moon.

"Don't you dare harm them, ghost," Valerie said, firing at Moon, who suddenly wasn't there any more. She made 'ghost' sound like an epithet.

Moon appeared again, in the air and behind Valerie, while the trio below watched what could almost be called Moon's first ghost fight, though she wasn't fighting another ghost and she wasn't trying to harm Valerie.

"Are you gonna go ghost, Danny?" Tucker asked quietly so Valerie wouldn't hear.

Sam did hear though. "I think we should let her handle this. It's only Valerie, and if things go downhill, Phantom can always help out then." Sam gave Danny a nudge and he smiled at her briefly before looking back up at the flying pair.

Moon never fired a shot, instead avoiding everything Valerie shot at her with ease.

"Who knew she was that fast?" Sam commented, continuing to watch above. It was almost like Moon knew where Valerie would fire and moved before she did, but Moon always moved after.

Valerie growled in frustration when Moon vanished and reappeared a distance away a moment later as the round Valerie fired passed by the ghost.

Moon led Valerie off, away from Danny, Sam, and Tucker, and returned a few minutes later without the huntress in tow. She transformed back to human form and turned invisible and intangible because Valerie returned a few minutes after that to see if the ghost had doubled back. (Moon had, obviously, but Valerie didn't need to know that, obviously.) She left to search other areas of the park after asking whether the ghost had done anything to the three and they all responded "No." The four returned to town and Moon fell asleep almost immediately once back at Sam's house even though it wasn't full dark yet. The ecto-ray practice had worn her out.

* * *

Joseph's return found Plasmius looking down at design plans for something while in the initial stages of construction of the aforementioned something.

"Two days until the team is sent off, Plasmius."

Plasmius looked up. "Two days, hm? Well, we'll just have to get there first. I do have my own plans to consider after all." The half ghost grinned. "Return to your post and report back to me immediately when the team is sent off."

Joseph left, dismissed. He only lingered momentarily at the swirling portal, hoping for any extra bits of information from Plasmius, but left promptly since Plasmius said nothing more. He also didn't want to anger the significantly stronger ghost by lurking when and where he wasn't supposed to.


	14. Captured

Enjoy the new chapter. It's a longer one.

* * *

The four were walking home from school and headed for Danny's house.

"Yeah! Three-day weekend!" Tucker shouted joyously.

Danny's grin matched Tucker's and Sam guided Moon around a fire hydrant. Lancer had given Moon an easy book to read--_The Bridge to Terabithia_--and she'd been inseparable from it. (Lancer had overheard the art teacher, Mr. Andropov, highly compliment Moon's art skill. Since the English teacher knew that Moon was still learning English, he decided to give her the imaginative book as practice. After her explained the summary of the short novel, Moon had grinned at him and started reading even as she walked out his classroom door.) Only one thing could really distract the Russian halfa enough to make her stop reading, and that would be the activation of her ghost sense.

Moon suddenly stopped and half turned to look almost directly behind and off the east.

"Guys," Sam said. Danny and Tucker hadn't noticed on their own, so Sam brought the change in situation to their attention.

"A ghost?" Tucker stated.

"Can you tell who it is, Moon?" Danny asked. Some ghosts showed up so often--like Phantom himself--that Moon could recognize them with just her ghost sense. The list was very small, though, only including the Box Ghost and Skulker.

"Someone strong," Moon said vaguely. "Like you."

That's when Danny's own ghost sense went off, which was quickly followed by a sighting of Plasmius in the direction Moon was looking. Moon's eyes narrowed in suspicion. The ghost was somehow familiar to her, but she didn't remember him from the incident where he showed up last time. She had been somewhat preoccupied. Danny ducked into an alley and transformed to chase Plasmius while Moon, Tucker, and Sam followed on foot.

They didn't have to run very far since Plasmius had been waiting for Phantom. They were in a midair standoff, (or float-off or hover-off), for a few reasons. One, the malicious halfa hadn't attacked yet and Danny doesn't usually instigate fights; two, a new ghost was accompanying Vlad, someone so relatively weak that neither Danny nor Moon had noticed him with ghost sense; and three, Vlad held a strange gun-like object that Danny had never seen the like of in his parents' lab.

Phantom was talking. "What do you want, _Plasmius_? Oh, wait, I know; the same thing that you always want. My answer is still 'no,' so you can go home."

"Go home, Daniel? Now why would I do that?" His eyes flashed as he caught sight of the three humans, including Moon. "Now that my target has arrived..."

Danny noticed that Vlad wasn't looking at him anymore and pulled a mid-air about-face to see his three friends, one of whom was Moon, a half-ghost. _Plasmius must know about her_, Danny reasoned as he suddenly recalled, _He was there when she shifted the first time. He _saw_ her transform._ Danny immediately half-turned as these thoughts shot through his mind and saw the evil ghost aim the strange weapon at Moon.

Moon, immediately figuring out that she was the target and in very great danger, was looking up into the muzzle of the gun as it charged with an odd orange-colored energy. The flight half of her fight-or-flight instincts had been heavily exercised from her many years as an experiment running from all manner of creatures that the white-coats had managed to capture and then let loose after her, so she reacted as any object of prey would. Run.

Danny formed a shield and placed it between Plasmius and Moon, but the glowing orange round that burst from the muzzle of the gun went straight through it like it wasn't there and hit the ground where Moon had been standing an instant before.

"What?" Danny gasped as the shield disintegrated from his surprise and he saw that Moon was standing unharmed about three feet from where she had been.

Plasmius said nothing and fired again, only to have Moon dodge it again. Now Phantom attacked, trying to disable the weapon or at least get it away from the ghost. He shot an ecto-ray at Vlad's hand, but Vlad pulled it up and raised an eyebrow at Danny. Danny fired again, only to have Vlad summon a shield and then fire back. Danny dodged and zoomed in to get under the ghost's guard with a glowing fist at the ready, but was kicked away. Danny had to turn intangible to avoid crashing into the building he was unwillingly zooming towards.

When Plasmius shot down toward Moon after kicking Phantom, Moon ran around the corner of a building to get out of sight and transformed--just like Danny had said, over and over and over...--and was intangibly sinking into the ground when Vlad flew around the corner, just in time to get tackled by Danny from behind. Vlad blasted Danny back, but not before Danny had shot an ecto-ray at the gun. It sparked in Vlad's hand as Danny grinned triumphantly. The grin disappeared when Plasmius promptly raised the gun and shot at Danny. The orange ball was smaller, but it still caught Danny by surprise and hit him in the leg. The half-ghost dropped in altitude briefly before recovering.

A chunk of Danny's energy suddenly vanished, causing him to nearly fall. "It still works!?"

"Of course it still works, Daniel. It isn't at full strength, but it is enough to accomplish what I want."

"Which is her, now? Why'd you change your mind?"

Plasmius scoffed and looked at ghost-Moon, who'd reappeared near Sam and Tucker. Moon shot into the air as Vlad shot an ecto-beam at her and dodged it, flying away as the older halfa took chase. Phantom chased after Vlad, staying on the original as he duplicated himself. The duplicate went off somewhere, invisible. Joseph, left behind, vanished but stayed to watch the two humans.

As Moon continued to stay out of reach, Vlad quickly reached his top speed, all the while firing at her, though not using the new, energy-draining weapon. Moon, without warning, doubled back, accelerating even further, and passed Plasmius, Phantom, and even the waiting Plasmius clone that had been expecting the halfa's tactic. She'd known that clone was there and flown faster so she could pass him before he could react. From her advantageous position in the back, she fired on the doppelganger, though her ecto-ray was so weak that it was only like a pinch.

Moon and Danny looked around as Vlad and the doppelganger both vanished. Moon kept looking around like an owl and Danny kept watch on Moon, thinking, _We're surrounded, aren't we?_ knowing that her ghost sense would have focused on a single ghost if there was only one and she wouldn't be looking around, pausing in three specific orientations.

The three invisible Plasmius forms appeared and Danny saw that he and Moon were indeed surrounded. Both of Danny's hands glowed and Moon became a red, black, and silver blurry form as she shot through a gap between two ghosts. They followed, coming closer together, and Danny fired on them from behind. One by one they vanished, and Plasmius did not reappear right away.

_He's planning something_, Danny thought when the pause lasted too long. He looked at Moon, careful to not let down his guard, and saw that she was slowly looking around, almost as if she were scanning the area with her ghost sense. _He must have transformed_, Danny concluded, _but why?_ Moon ignored the extremely weak ghost hiding nearby since it wasn't Plasmius.

Suddenly fearing for his two human friends' safety, Danny flew back to them with Moon in tow. They were fine, and Plasmius was no where to be seen. Or sensed, according to Moon.

"He must have transformed back," Danny said aloud to the other three.

"Transformed?" Moon questioned.

"He's half-ghost too," Danny explained, "just like us."

Moon suddenly remembered Plasmius/Vlad Masters from the incident.

A distant roaring reached their ears and a jet shot overhead. Danny almost thought it was the Guys In White, but when the angled, dangerous-looking aircraft circled back, he saw that it was black and dark gray.

Moon's eyes widened and Danny said, "That can't be good." This was promptly supported by the firing of a missile at the group. Danny created a shield to meet it and Moon flew off at an angle. The missile, seemingly aimed at Phantom, instead followed a curved path past the shield and after Moon. All those watching soon figured out that it was locked onto the halfa somehow since all her evasive maneuvers--which mostly had to do with speed since that was her greatest advantage, along with the advanced ghost sense--were ineffective. After almost a minute, Moon remembered she had new tricks and dove into the ground at high speed intangibly. The missile followed her path above-ground as she started flying under the street and then came back up. Seeing that this hadn't worked and spotting the offensive black plane, Moon flew intangibly through it, hoping that the missile would crash into it. When that failed, Moon decided to try going underground again. She flew up high to get the missile up with her and then flew straight down and continued going after passing into the ground intangibly. Still following its target, the missile plowed into the ground after her, exploding into a green, ectoplasmic, short-range blast that shattered a few of the closest windows.

Danny went invisible and intangible and flew through the fuselage of the plane to the cockpit. There his ears were greeted by a foreign language that he could now recognize as Russian. Looking at some of the monitoring panels that were very likely sensory equipment, he saw just a single beacon, moving around. On another panel was a kind of diagram-thing that was lit up with various levels with odd text--also probably Russian--around it. A few lines of text were next to each bar and each bar had a line drawn from it to an area on the diagram.

_All this equipment... It's focused on Moon! But they haven't noticed me yet. I'm not on any of the screens. There's just that one dot over there... So how are they tracking Moon?_ Danny left the plane just as invisibly and intangibly as he entered it and explained his observations and thoughts to Sam and Tucker. "They have a bunch of sensing equipment in there, but it's only picking up Moon. They have some monitoring systems there too, I guess of Moon's vital signs or whatever, though I don't know how they're getting that. I couldn't read any of the text or understand what the people were saying because it's all in Russian."

"The scientists!" Sam exclaimed. "It must be them! Come for Moon again."

"But how are they tracking just her? Why aren't their instruments picking up Danny too?"

Joseph returned invisibly to Vlad Masters who'd been lurking nearby in human form and tweaking his new gun to try to get it working in top shape again.

"It's a retrieval team from North," the weak ghost reported.

"And the tracking system? How are they only picking up Moon?"

"The half-ghost girl has a tracking device. Their systems are tuned to that and not any ecto-frequency."

Moon reappeared within Vlad's visual range and hovered with her back to him, her eyes on the plane.

When Masters saw that Moon had stopped moving and didn't seem aware that he was behind her on the ground, he stopped tweaking the gun and charged it as high as he could. It took longer that the first time, and only reached about halfway between the power of the first shot and the power that had hit Phantom, but one shot should be enough.

Phantom, still hovering, saw Moon reappear. There was an air of expectancy as the two halfas and two humans watched the aircraft, waiting for its next move. Something orange at the edge of Danny's vision caught his attention and when he looked, he saw Moon falling and knew that Vlad had shot her from behind, somehow catching her by surprise.

As Moon was suddenly hit from behind by something, she shouted in pain as nearly all of her energy was depleted in the blink of an eye. Unable to remain airborne, she fell to the ground, landing on her feet. Her legs shook, barely able to keep her standing, though she did stay in ghost form.

_"Energy levels suddenly fell to nearly zero!" _Mister B, one of the retrieval team on the plane, yelled in surprise.

_"Fire round two!"_ Mister F, team leader, ordered.

Moon looked up as another missile was fired at her. She had lost so much energy that she couldn't even turn intangible, let alone escape. Her red eyes flashed to Danny as he tried to intercept the missile, but he didn't get there in time. He was only half-surprised to watch the missile crash into a pale red shield that appeared just before it would have hit Moon.

Alarms went off loudly in Moon's mind as her ghost sense suddenly picked up on Plasmius, who'd transformed close behind her. Feeling resigned to some kind of horrible fate, she was too weak to do anything about her situation. She was mildly surprised when he summoned a shield to defend her from the missile, but the emotion she felt much stronger was apprehension.

Plasmius used a mild--to him and Phantom anyway--ecto-blast to knock the inexperienced, weak halfa unconscious. He was surprised when she stayed in ghost form, but that wouldn't really be a problem because he had technology that would force her to transform back, conscious or not.

Danny, suddenly forgetting the Russian plane from North, flew as fast as he could towards Plasmius, but he went intangible with unconscious Moon in his arms and escaped. Joseph took off after his master when he saw them leave.

In the plane, the tracking beacon showed the Experiment moving somewhere, presumably in the hands of that other ghost because the vital signs monitor showed the Experiment had lost consciousness. When the beacon suddenly vanished, however, they were at a loss for what to do. How could the beacon possibly vanish like that?

Phantom took Sam and Tucker and flew them intangibly and invisibly back to his parents' lab where they found a suspiciously open portal.

"Vlad must have taken her back to Wisconsin," Danny said as he transformed back and shut the portal doors.

"We need to make a plan," Sam said. "Vlad will be expecting us to go after him to rescue Moon."

* * *

Moon slowly dragged herself back to full consciousness. She was tired but felt otherwise fine and was lying on a bed. A comfortable bed, not unlike the one she occupied in Sam's house. When she remembered the fight--and realized that she was in human form in bed--she thought it had just been a dream. Until she opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, strange decorations, a strange view out the window, and a bed bigger than the one she was used to with green and gold sheets.

_It wasn't a dream._

The sound of a doorknob being unlocked and then turned caught Moon's attention. Her ghost sense told her that a weak ghost was behind the door. When it opened, she saw Vlad Masters as a human and Joseph the ghost.

"Good. You're awake now."

Moon glared at the billionaire and ignored the weak ghost.

"Don't bother trying to transform and escape. That collar prevents you from accessing any of your ghost powers."

Moon realized that she was indeed wearing a thin collar--the design of which Vlad had taken from the plans Joseph had retrieved, though he had made a few of his own improvements--and that she couldn't access any ghost powers. Except the ghost sense, which was always active anyway.

The civility of her captor would've had more of an effect on Moon if she hadn't been so mad about being collared again after having so many weeks of freedom. She wasn't sure if she was in a better situation than back in the labs in Russia.

"I am Vlad Masters, also known as Plasmius. Welcome to my Wisconsin home." Moon did not respond in kind to the introduction, deciding instead to continue glaring. She also decided rather grudgingly that she might be in a better situation and had to be at least somewhat optimistic. After all, she was friends with Danny Phantom. If she couldn't escape herself, chances were good that Phantom would come save her. Though if she did escape herself--which she had absolutely no idea how to do with a collar that prevented using any ghost powers--she wouldn't be able to get back to Amity Park because she didn't know the way.

Joseph wondered how long it would take for that ghost boy that was with Moon to find his way here. The North wasn't really a concern since his master had removed the tracking beacon that had been embedded in the Experiment's upper arm while she was still unconscious and given it to Joseph, ordering him to return in to North but leave it somewhere on the outer perimeter buried in snow.

Joseph looked at the Experiment now and remembered all the others that had come before. Every one of the 27 experiments before this one, number 28, hadn't survived. Joseph had brought in several of the human subjects for the experiments and wondered if Experiment 28, the first success, had been one of them. Next time Plasmius sent Joseph to North, he planned to find out.

* * *

Review!

In case you were wondering, Mr. Andropov _is _distantly related to the Soviet KGB leader Andropov that took power after Brezhnev died and was soon dead himself. Mr. Andropov's family had immigrated decades before, however, and they never made contact with anyone in the USSR. The first generation never even taught the descendents Russian, so Mr. Andropov can't speak it. He is employed at Casper High because, despite the unfortunate family name, the school desperately needed an art teacher and it's hard to find one when the town is heavily haunted. The staff and students learned early on to like the teacher since he's nothing like his evil distant relation.


	15. Football

Hiya. Moon has officially been finished. There's a prologue and everything and the final chapter count will be 20 chapters. Oh yeah, and, in case you've been looking or haven't forgotten, Moon's third special power will show up at the end. Remember how I'd limit her to three so she didn't become a Mary Sue? The first two have already made an appearance of course...

* * *

_"You lost It?" _Madame said quietly with the back of her chair turned toward Mister M, who had been reporting on the status of the retrieval mission. _"How did you lose It?"_

_"There were two ghosts already there, Madame. The local hero, Phantom, and someone else. They were fighting each other. The unfamiliar one shot The Experiment from behind and captured her, taking her away some place. We searched for the beacon and found it on the perimeter of North, beyond the ghost shield. It had been removed, somehow."_

_"Find where the beacon last transmitted. __**Before**__ it appeared here."_

_"That will take some time, Madame."_

_"I don't care how long it takes. Just do it."_

_"Yes, Madame."_

* * *

"Vlad will be expecting us," Danny said as he paced in his room while repeatedly glancing at his computer screen through which he was currently communicating with his friends.

"Which is why we need to make a plan," Sam insisted, not for the first time that day.

"Why would he want Moon?" Tucker asked. "Wasn't he fixated on you, Danny?"

"Probably because she's a halfa too, and an easier target than Danny."

"Well, that little detail aside, it would probably be easiest to get to Vlad's place through his ghost portal, right?"

"I can check that out, but he'll probably be expecting us to come that way and have it shut. I don't know about you guys, but I don't know how to open a portal from the ghost zone side. It's not like there's any access key like there is on our side."

"That would be a problem," Tucker supplied. "Wait, doesn't that mean you could be stuck in the ghost zone of both portals were closed?"

"There's naturally occurring portals," Sam said. "Couldn't you use one of those?"

"I don't know where any are," Danny said. "They usually close on their own pretty quickly, or are too small, but I always break those up whenever I find one." _Not that I find that many_, Danny said to himself. _Especially ones my size._

"So if we can't go through to ghost zone... Danny, didn't you and your mom go there once?"

"Yeah. We went by plane, though ghosts were piloting it and they abandoned mid-flight so we'd crash..."

"We could do that again!" Sam said, excitement in her voice.

"But Sam, I don't know if I could fly us that far. I don't even know exactly where his mansion is, just that it's in the mountains somewhere. Most of the times I've gone, it's been by way of ghost zone."

"I could probably find it," Tucker said.

"And I could get the plane."

"How would you get a plane, Sam?"

"I'm rich, remember?"

"Right."

"So. Sounds like a plan. You check Vlad's portal, Danny, while Tucker pinpoints his location and I get our plane."

* * *

Moon was stunned. Here she was, kidnapped, in the house of Danny's enemy, and she was eating cheese crackers. Sitting in a big chair, like the ones Sam has for movie watching or that Tucker's dad always sits in. Next to Vlad, who had his own plate Ritz that were also covered in melted cheddar cheese, and his own big comfortable chair. Both chairs were, of course, green with gold trim. And they were watching _football_. It was the Packers, that team the billionaire always obsesses over, and they were playing against some team that Moon had neither paid attention to the name of nor really cared about. All she knew was that one of their colors was red. She didn't much care about the Packers either, but it's difficult to forget the name of the team when in the home of Fan Vlad Masters.

It was only Moon's first day here, and this wasn't at all what she expected to happen to her. She'd even forgotten the collar for a while in surprise.

After about twenty minutes, Moon figured out that she didn't care about The Game--the way Vlad says it, the words are capitalized--and went into a state on non-thinking boredom as she continued to munch on crackers.

"YES!" Vlad leaped out of his chair, nearly knocking over his empty plate with just crumbs and a few cheese smudges left on it.

The sudden motion and loud exclamation jerked Moon's awareness back to her present situation and, momentarily disorientated, she went rigid, causing the empty plate on her lap to slide to the floor with a carpet-muffled thud. The startled halfa stared at Vlad, then looked to the screen to see end-game celebration. _The game must be over_, she reasoned out. _I guess the Packers won._

Moon watched two of the players grab a round container of some kind and up-end it over the head of another man with a bulky headset or something on. Yellow liquid came pouring out and the man was soaked with the strange drink. But he was laughing about it, which Moon thought particularly strange.

"Why did they do that?" Moon couldn't help asking.

Her quiet voice caught Vlad's attention, and there was a momentary pause before he answered. "The players of the winning team always dump the cooler of Gatorade on the Coach's head. It's a football tradition." Vlad, though pleased that Moon was talking to him, had been a tad surprised that she had spoken. It was an affront to his fandom that she didn't know about the custom that was common knowledge even among people who weren't football fans. Vlad also felt an odd, unfamiliar satisfaction in being able to give the halfa this knowledge.

"What is Ga-to-rade?" Moon carefully pronounced the unfamiliar word syllable by syllable, trying to copy the way Vlad had said it.

"It's a kind of energy drink." Vlad looked down at Moon, wondering what else she would ask, or say. When she turned her attention away from him and resumed watching the screen silently, Vlad looked around at the clock. "Time for dinner," he declared, trying to provoke another response. All he got was her looking at him again with the two-tone eyes that he suddenly noticed. "Is there anything you'd like?"

Moon just stared at the older halfa as he asked her what she wanted to eat for dinner. _This day can't get any weirder._ Especially considering that the man was acting like she was a friend, or at least a family member. Moon never would've guessed that being Vlad's hostage would be like this. Remembering that she was a hostage connected with the thought of the collar around her neck, which immediately soured her mood.

Vlad could tell that Moon had remembered the collar he'd put on her to restrain her ghost powers. She suddenly seemed to be glaring at him, and she was also straining her neck without moving her head very much, as if the collar were chafing. He sighed mentally and frowned at the teen before prompting himself to say, "We will go to the dining hall and you may order whatever you wish."

Moon stood to follow Vlad sullenly out of the room.

In the dining hall, after Moon had continued to glare at Vlad and stay silent, he ordered grilled chicken for her. It was topped with a light orange sauce and a decorative orange slice.

Moon gazed down at her plate of food; it was chicken with some orange on it. As a vegetarian, mainly because she lived with Sam, she didn't eat meat. After poking the chicken around her plate while listening to Vlad eat his own food--he'd ordered the same meal for Moon as he had for himself--she decided to eat the orange slice on top. Obviously that didn't last long and, very hungry but unwilling to talk, she cut a little niblet of chicken and ate it.

Vlad watched as Moon finally decided to eat a bite of chicken. He was already mostly finished with his. He could tell, as Moon chewed, that she tried to control her face, but the expression of disgust made an appearance anyway. He figured out that she didn't like chicken, but that she probably hadn't ever tried it before.

Moon swallowed the little piece after chewing it, just to be polite, but she dropped her fork on her plate with rather excessive force and refused to touch it again for the rest of the meal, which didn't last for much longer. After that, a vulture ghost came to report something to Vlad. He promptly escorted Moon back to her room and locked the door, leaving another vulture ghost as sentry.

Several days passed in this manner, though the activities that Vlad dragged her into would vary, in which Moon never managed to come up with an escape plan. She fell back on the hope that Danny would save her.

* * *

Joseph snuck back into North, this time with an ulterior motive of finding the Experiment's origins. He flew through the hallways that were becoming familiar from all the reconnaissance that Plasmius ordered him on and found an empty records room. This room had actual physical files, on paper in folders in boxes. A whole shelving unit was devoted to information on the experiments. These boxes weren't marked, so Joseph started pulling them out and going through them one by one, searching for Experiment 28, which was not, despite what logic would indicate, in the last box.

* * *

So, you read my little note at the top right? The one saying that this story is finished? Because it's finished, I can post the next chapter at any time. Perhaps if you review, I'll post it sooner. If not, well... You get the idea. So click on that button below, okay?


	16. Frying Pan

Moon was stuck in her room again. It was locked, of course, and those two ghost vultures were probably on the other side of the door at their typical posts. Joseph was gone somewhere--despite her efforts, the halfa couldn't eavesdrop and get any information from Vlad, so she had no idea why he was important. Vlad was also gone somewhere, as he had been since early this morning. It was late afternoon and Moon almost missed the billionaire because there was usually something to do while he was around. Locked in her room as she was, with absolutely nothing to do, she was desperately bored. She couldn't even find a pencil to draw with, though if she had she would've drawn on the walls out of spite.

The two vulture ghosts outside the door flinched as they heard a loud thump. Moon had hit the window again as her frustration peaked for the fourth time that day. The reinforced windows had been coated in a specially-developed laminate similar to what was used to bullet-proof windows but with ectoplasm in the mix. The only tangible results were the smudges on the window and bruises on Moon's hands that only got bigger and deeper with each consecutive hit.

As Moon got her fingers under her collar to try pulling at it again, she couldn't help thinking about Vlad's whereabouts.

_He's never been gone this long before. Not even half as much. What could possibly be going on? Maybe he got in a fight and was injured._

Moon was somewhat pleased by that idea and a picture started forming itself in her mind, but it was overwhelmed by worry that it might be harder to escape without the option of tricking the obsessive halfa.

* * *

"Okay, so now we're sure," Sam said with false cheer.

Danny's only response was to transform back to human form as he fell into a chair dejectedly. He had just returned from a trip to Vlad's ghost portal which was, as they all had suspected, shut.

"But we almost have a plan together," Tucked added with more truthful cheer.

Danny glanced up with a look that said, _Yeah, now what?_ They had come up with several plans in the last few days but they'd all been scrapped due to critical flaws.

"We just need to trick Vlad." Danny's head fell again, but Sam paid more attention, picking up on Tucker's energy at having found a real idea.

"With what this time?" Danny mumbled.

"A football."

Danny looked up, confused. He hadn't heard that one. "A what?"

"A football. A signed football, with Packers' signatures on it."

"Vlad already has one," Danny said, though he had also picked up on Tucker's excitement by now.

"Why wouldn't he want another football? Especially if it has signatures from the _whole team_."

"And how will we get that, Tucker?" Danny tried to be patient and not outright reject Tucker, especially before he'd finished explaining.

"We won't actually get it, it'll just be advertised. It will be a rumored private auction. No pictures so the flash won't damage the supposedly-real ball. Unspecific directions to the selling location. Vlad will have to fly out and look, not being able to help himself."

Sam and Danny now had grins matching Tucker's.

"We already found out where he is and Sam can get that plane of hers at a moment's notice, so we can go get Moon while he's gone searching. This will work!"

* * *

_"Madame."_

_"You better have good news for me this time,"_ the woman in the ominous chair almost growled.

_"The last transmitted location of the beacon before it arrived here has been pinpointed, Madame. Coordinates indicate a rather desolate area of Wisconsin, a northern state. Spies indicate there is a single mansion at the coordinates and nothing else within several miles."_

_"Good. That is very good. Send the team there immediately. In the 62."_

_"Yes, Madame."_

* * *

When she heard the noise of a plane landing, Moon was standing on the ceiling. More accurately, she had climbed up onto her bedposts and was doing a handstand, or at least trying to. After reaching the top of the bedposts, Moon had walked herself up the wall and onto the ceiling, bracing herself in that position. Yes, she had been _that_ bored to even consider, let alone actually try doing it. She'd tried a half-dozen times and had only now managed to stand, in a way, on the ceiling. The plane distracted her enough that she slipped and, unable recover, she fell through the hole in the canopied top that she'd made on her fourth attempt and widened on her fifth attempt and bounced onto the mattress once before it bounced her off and she landed on the floor ungracefully.

With sudden hope, she rushed to the window, only to see nothing on the short lawn outside or among the trees beyond its edge. As her hope was fading back with thoughts that the plane had just been someone passing over low to a nearby airport, she heard loud knocking in a different part of the house. Her ghost sense told her that the two ghosts outside her door left to investigate.

Moon could only wait as she recalled her futile attempts to break the door lock.

* * *

"We should have at least half an hour before he returns," Tucker reported after glancing at the screen of his PDA.

"Danny, land in front, there should be plenty of lawn space. And use the road as a runway."

Danny, who was piloting the small, speedy craft, didn't waste time telling Sam that she didn't need to repeat those particular instructions again. They were coming up on Vlad's mansion.

The plane dropped below the tree line and landed on the road. It taxied onto the front lawn which was, strangely, already occupied by another plane. It was completely black with the radar invisibility stuff and a rather odd triangle shape.

"That isn't good," Tucker commented.

"I don't think it belongs to Vlad," Sam said as she peered at it, as if a stronger focus would automatically enable her to ID the strange craft.

The trio looked at each other as the plane stopped moving. "The scientists!"

Tucker keyed the hatch open but Danny, to impatient to wait for it to actually do so, transformed and flew his friends intangibly out of the craft and through Vlad's open door. They flew through the house quickly, going past door after open door, until they went upstairs and discovered the Russian agents forcing their way into yet another.

Only a few agents noticed the recent arrivals as, with a shout of joy, the others realized that they'd finally found the captive halfa.

"Moon!" Sam and Tucker screamed simultaneously as Danny flew straight through the wall and into Moon's room.

With agents flooding the room and blocking the doorway, Sam and Tucker set about trying to remove Moon's collar as Phantom removed the agents from the room, fired minor ecto blasts to keep them from trying to enter it again, and then set up a shield in the doorway to defend the room's occupants against the ecto-guns.

"Friends!" Moon was shocked with delight to see her friends, especially after the North agents burst in, to her horror.

Sam saw the thin metallic band around Moon's neck and called Tucker's attention to it. Moon explained that it stopped her powers, so Tucker focused on removing it while Sam spoke to Moon quickly about the situation. She also informed Danny of the collar and that he wouldn't be able to get Moon out of the room without either removing the Russian agents or the collar. Most preferably both, but the first wasn't likely to happen given that Moon's presence was the very reason why they all were here.

* * *

Plasmius, enraged about the false lure of a team-signed Packers football, had abandoned his personal aircraft and was flying home under his own power. He was shocked to his senses when he finally arrived and saw two small aircraft on his previously unmarred lawn which was, if seen from above, a very large recreation of the Packers logo.

With eyes narrowed in anger and suspicion, he shot into his invaded home through the door that had been forced open several minutes before by the Russians.

* * *

"Guys, can you hurry up? I can't maintain this solid shield much longer." The Russians had been attacking the barrier with increasing energy as they saw the signs of the one maintaining it weakening.

"We're trying!" Sam and Tucker were both trying to remove the collar without harming Moon in the process.

Moon wasn't doing anything. She was, in fact, focusing very hard on doing nothing at all, not moving even a twitch, so Sam and Tucker could work.

"We got--!" Tucker shouted as the collar snapped off cleanly, but he was cut off by the reddish-pink ectoplasmic shockwave that stunned the Russian agents, caused Danny to drop his shield and stumble back, and caused the trio on the other side of the room to fall back in a jumble.

Plasmius and Phantom, both worn out, crashed into each other as the Russian agents quickly recovered and flooded the room, capturing Moon with a leash before she could even transform fully. The team fled, covering their retreat with ecto weapons that were strong enough to give the weakened two half ghosts pause.

They made good their escape with Experiment 28 who would have been enraged if she hadn't been drugged unconscious.

Plasmius rounded on the three remaining invaders. Sam and Tucker stayed behind Danny, whose posture indicated exhaustion but whose expression indicated determination. Plasmius had the same posture but his expression was of intense irritation.

* * *

"I can't believe it," Tucker said, still stunned. "Who'd've thought; a truce between you two."

"I can't believe it any more than you can," Danny responded, still tired. _But you did agree to it,_ said a voice in his head. _So did he,_ Danny responded to himself.

"Who was that, anyway?" Sam asked, remembering the unfamiliar ghost with the Russian accent that had arrived in the middle of the halfa stand-off and proposed the whole idea while explaining his reasoning. He also made Vlad swear to free him if the plan worked.

"Said his name was Joseph," Danny responded.

"Yeah, but that's just a name. I wonder _who he is_."

"Some kind of servant, given that he wanted freedom from Vlad," Tucker responded to Sam's emphasis.

Danny recalled the last few minutes, just because he still couldn't really believe it.

Joseph had suddenly appeared to report to Plasmius, which had been pointless because he'd been late. To everyone's surprise, he proposed a truce. After shouts of outrage, he explained that he was the only one who knew the precise location of the North base and how to get to it, Vlad couldn't go and get what he wanted by himself, and that the trio were the only people who could really help him.

It was agreed, after the truce was agreed upon, that everyone would get a few hours rest before going to North.

Danny sighed.

* * *

Moon was in human form, with the anklet that blocked her powers secured, in her cage that seemed much smaller than she remembered. She had recovered from the drugs only to find herself in a reality-induced nightmare and wished she were back in the drug-induced blank unconsciousness.

Experiment 28 screamed in sudden, inarticulate rage and made a futile effort to break the ectoplasm reinforced bars.

* * *

"Why allow them to capture her?" an irritated Observant questioned Clockwork. "With her back in their grasp, they could gain access to our realm and infiltrate it! You know what will happen!"

Clockwork was silent. He did not even acknowledge the eyeball ghosts with a glance.

"Why not do something to avoid that particular future? We know you can. You've interfered before."

Clockwork observed the sullen Observants and recalled their assurances that the North research facility would never succeed in even creating a halfa. That had been several Earth years ago, though the time ghost never paid any real attention to the passage of time in relation to himself. He was outside time, after all.

"I have already taken measures," Clockwork finally told the two Observants.

"What measures?" The Observants were even more irritated to hear this and realize that they hadn't noticed any action Clockwork might have made.

"A premature activation of her powers."

"How will her speed and ghost sense help now? They didn't help her stay free, and now she's in their stronghold."

Clockwork stayed silent.


	17. Fire

Moon was curled upon her side in her cell, the leg with the restraint sticking out awkwardly. The place was cool, but long clumps of hair that the whitecoats hadn't bothered to cut yet stuck to her sweaty neck and face. She was having nightmares. Her foot twitched suddenly as her dream-self stopped short, hearing someone call her name. The voice repeated itself and, when Moon woke up, the voice was still there. She thought she was going insane until her ghost sense told her that an extremely weak ghost was outside the bars of her cage, trying to get her attention.

Seeing that Experiment 28 was awake, Joseph let his invisibility flicker away for a moment, long enough for the halfa to recognize him. She jerked forward to the bars.

_"We're coming to rescue you," _Joseph whispered before he fled. Moon sensed his departure. She slumped against a side wall as the door at the end of the hallway opened and whitecoats came in, no doubt for her.

* * *

"Why can't we go in the way Joseph does?" Tucker asked.

The four of them were planning how to get Moon out of North.

"The ghost shield is nearly spherical and the only break is a hole too small for you two to fit through. Unlike us, you can't change your shape." Vlad didn't like having to explain to enemies, truce or no. At least not until they couldn't do anything about it.

"And why can't we just walk through the ghost shield?"

"The perimeter is heavily guarded."

"We'll go in first," Danny took over the explaining, "and disable the shields, then come back and get you. Once we're all in, we'll be distracting guards, finding and escaping Moon, and sabotaging the base. All the research and technology has to be destroyed."

"And we wait for Joseph to return with specifics." Vlad ended the discussion.

"At least it's a three-day weekend," Sam mumbled low enough for only her two friends to hear.

* * *

Moon had a long ecto-leash on, much longer than what they'd had before she left. They had seen her fire ecto blasts somehow and they were training her to do those. She was restrained at the waist with some kind of special belt that she couldn't move intangibly through. The gleam of ecto-reinforced metal like what was on her cell bars had been recognizable. The incentive, besides suffering shocks from the leash, were all the little ghost rat things with pointy little teeth. Her targets. Her job was to shoot them before they reached her. She let them come close before shooting to fool the scientists and occasionally took pot shots at more distant targets, purposely missing everything middle range and hitting the distant targets on what would seem like luck. She didn't want the whitecoats to know her skills, few as they were.

When the targets were all gone, she stood and waited like a good Experiment 28. This was the hardest for her because she could feel her power responding to her anger, more every second, and she had to keep it under control. It would be harder to escape this time and there was no guarantee of a lucky exit like what had happened with that portal.

The ghost shield was visibly stronger, the ecto weapons had been demonstrated to as also being more powerful, the leash was more resilient; her escape seemed to have benefited them more than her, seeing as she was back.

Joseph's message gave her hope, even if all she could hope was that her friends survived the rescue attempt. Moon's optimism wavered beneath these dark thoughts.

When she was tossed back in her cage with the ecto-leash not snapping away until the bars closed their energy circuit, a bag of food pellets was tossed with her, as well as a sealed box of water without one of those handy straws. Looking at the familiar brown chunks that looked like dog food, Moon opted instead for water and chewed on the little seal on the top until it broke. The water was bitter and she decided not to drink it either. She decided to try short-circuiting her restraining anklet with it instead, but she'd have to pry open some part of the surface first.

One of the incidental lessons she'd learned at Danny's house, besides not to approach food that's been in the fridge more than a day too closely, was that ecto-tech was very water sensitive. When the circuitry was exposed, anyway. It was more resilient otherwise.

* * *

Sam and Tucker were shivering in their hiding spot in the snow. Their cold-weather gear was pure white, thick and warming, but not quite enough. Phantom and Plasmius had gone a few minutes before, led by Joseph through the little hole he'd found, to the ghost shield generators. The human pair stared, watching for any changes, when they saw it dim slightly. They had nearly dismissed it as their imaginations when the whole thing fell. Moments later, Phantom and Plasmius zoomed back above ground and took them intangibly inside the structure. Much to Tucker's unhappiness, he was carried back with Vlad. It had been discussed earlier, that Vlad and Tucker would go together to sabotage the base, but Tucker didn't have to be happy about it. Sam and Danny were going to find and rescue Moon. Joseph appeared again to lead them to all the likely places Moon would be.

* * *

Moon had finally managed to raise a corner of metal plate a small amount when alarms started going off. She smiled, realizing what was going on, even as several guards fled into the hallway to prevent her escape. Moon attacked the raised corner, bending it open just enough to pour in some water. It sparked satisfyingly and she tested her powers, making her hand go intangible behind her back. It worked! But it was weak. The restraint was still partially functional.

As the bars slid down, Moon prepared to leap out and tackle the guards positioned with their backs turned. Halfway down, she had enough space, and she launched herself from the back wall, evading the first leash that had been aimed inside the cage. She collided with the backs of someone's knees and he folded to the floor with an exclamation of surprise. Moon had just gotten up to run when three leashed hit her simultaneously and a fourth one with slight delay. They all shocked her at once and she growled with the strength of her restrained scream of pain. The four leashes melted together into one thick strong one and the guards tried to pull the strands apart without breaking the connection. Moon, recovering, leapt at one of the leash holders, but another one nailed her in the head with large end of a rifle. She fell to the ground stunned and didn't get up again right away.

Danny, Sam, and Joseph saw Moon just as she fell from the guard's blow. Danny fired a well-aimed blast that sent a shockwave making all the guards stumble back, if not fall down outright. It did not break the leash he saw, though, so he dove in and blasted the handheld controls one by one out of the hands holding them. Then he created a shield around Moon big enough for Sam so she could revive the stunned halfa while Danny held off the guards.

Moon didn't recognize Sam or Danny right away since she couldn't see straight and the alarms echoed in her ears, but she did manage to be coherent enough the mention her ankle restraint and 'no powers' to whoever was trying to help her.

Sam found the pried open crack in the power restraint around Moon's leg, the one she said blocked her powers and widened it more until it was big enough for Danny to send a small ectoblast to fry the inner circuits and render it useless, which he did while maintaining the shield. Sam then helped Moon upright while she recovered her senses.

For Moon it seemed like hours before her eyes and ears could work again, but it was really only about two minutes until they were blurry but workable. She recognized Sam and Danny and Sam helped the halfa to her feet on wobbly legs. Her equilibrium was messed up too, and she couldn't stand without assistance.

Danny, impatient to escape, decided to just grab his friend and the incapacitated but recovering halfa and fly out, led by Joseph to the location of Vlad and Tucker. The guards that were left behind all ran for the hangar to escape the madness, vowing to get out of the madhouse no matter the paycheck and perks.

* * *

Vlad and Tucker were at two workstations, searching for some kind of self-destruct mechanism.

A distant explosion shook the foundation, startling both people.

"Did you find it," Tucker shouted at Vlad over the alarm.

"No!" Vlad looked suddenly more irritated as he went from the thought that Tucker had found it and not told him to the thought that something much worse and out of their control had just happened.

"Then what was that?" Another explosion, not as loud, shook the walls.

"Our cue to exit!" Danny yelled as he rushed in with the other half of the team.

Plasmius found a diagram of what was going on. "The generators! When we destroyed the ghost shield generators, it set off a delayed chain reaction in the event of sabotage! This whole place will be gone in about ten minutes!" Another louder explosion seemed timed to put emphasis on the words.

"We need to leave now!" Joseph urged. "Before the whole building shuts itself down to prevent escape!"

Everyone went intangible and fled for the nearest outer wall, but it was ghost-shielded, somehow.

"There's a door this way!" Joseph led them to an outer door, but a thick metal screen fell down as they sighted it. That was happening simultaneously to every outer door and window in the building. The doors were also ghost-proof. The likelihood of survival had just taken a steep dive toward zero.

"This way!" Joseph led them all deep into the lowest floors. The explosions weren't as loud, there were no alarms, and there was only faint light provided by the ghosts themselves.

"The explosions won't reach here until the end."

"Can't you two just keep us intangible until they're over?" Tucker asked hopefully.

"No," Joseph answered in place of the two halfas. "With all the ectoplasmic energy in this facility, it'll be heavily integrated into the blasts and ghosts will be affected also."

"We can't escape?" Danny asked quietly.

Joseph shook his head.

"But Moon escaped before. With a portal." Sam grasped at any hope she could find.

"Thaah washnn meeah," Moon slurred heavily.

"What do you mean it wasn't you!?"

"I dinn do it."

"But no one else could've! You said you couldn't find another ghost on the other side. And there was a second portal! No ghosts were nearby for that one either! How else would they appear?"

"Natural portals?" Danny suggested.

"With that kind of coincidence?"

"Who do we know that can create portals?" Tucker chimed in.

"Clockwork," Danny suggested.

"But he hasn't shown up at all. Even he needs to be close by to create a portal, doesn't he?"

Moon was following the logic that all said they were doomed. She desperately wanted to survive and the blow to her head was causing her to fade in and out of reliable consciousness. She gathered all the energy she could, transforming so she could access even more, but had no idea what to do with it. She had been standing independently but swayed and fell against Sam and the wall.

"Whoa, Moon, maybe you shouldn't do that. You might have a concussion."

Another heavy explosion rocked the room enough to dislodge dust from the ceiling that fell onto their heads.


	18. Prison

Sam took a firm grip on Moon's shoulders to support her. "Moon, listen. What if it really was you?"

"I don't know how to make portals, Sam. I can barely do the simplest of ghost skills."

"Please, Moon! What if? Can't you try?"

"I don't know!" The power she'd called had no where to go and that was pressuring her just as much as Sam was. She didn't know what to do about any part of the situation.

There was a sudden stronger explosion and bits of ceiling started to fall. Plasmius summoned a shield to protect the group from debris.

"How could we make a portal? Vlad, you built one."

"It's a matter of tearing the fabric of space, just a little tiny hole, but it takes a burst of power. Space fabric doesn't like being altered. We both discovered that personally, didn't we Daniel?"

Moon lost her balance and nearly fell as another blast shook the building. The others just swayed with the motion. She wished she could recover faster. Not to mention avoid dying. Well, dying again, anyway, depending on how you looked at it._ Not important_, she told herself, trying to move irrelevant thoughts from his mind.

"Theoretically," Plasmius continued explaining, "it shouldn't be as hard for a ghost, seeing as we manipulate the fabric of space all the time when we do things like going intangible or using any powers, but since no one does it..."

Moon was listening to Vlad and could feel her power moving as if his words were causing it. It was moving, but it still didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Several smaller, quick explosions were going off now. "We're nearly out of time," Joseph warned. "You'd better do something about this portal theory of yours soon."

Danny and Vlad both started trying to make a portal, but all that was achieved was minor space distortions. Invisibility or intangibility cause stronger effects than what they were doing.

Moon's power moved again and she could _see_ something. She desperately wanted to escape. She still didn't know what to do or how.

There was a pause in the rapid-fire little explosions before a much larger one shook bigger pieces of debris from the ceiling. Moon was knocked to the floor along with Tucker while the others managed to catch themselves against walls.

The second blow to her head seemed to clear it, though her senses went all out of whack again. She could perceive a kind of wall, instinctively understood it was what stood between her and safety, and she threw a spear of power at it with all she could, almost against her will.

A green swirling portal spun out of existence in the center of the room. Everyone stared at it, willing it larger as it expanded so it would be big enough for them to pass through. Moon, flickering unconscious again, moaned on the floor.

The hole was sucking in all the energy she'd summoned to activity, weakening her, draining her. That was extremely bad, though she didn't know exactly why. It was really hard to think and everything hurt, especially her head. She tried to stop the energy flow but couldn't until the hole was done forming itself to the size she'd unconsciously demanded.

In the ominous silence, Joseph said, "We need to leave now. There is only one more explosion left."

Everyone looked from the portal to Moon and saw that she was practically unconscious. She couldn't have created a portal in her condition, could she? Who cares, it's there.

Danny grabbed Moon and Sam, Plasmius grabbed Tucker, and Joseph came last as everyone shot through the portal as there was a rushing sound of imminent death by explosion. The kind of sound that one would hear at a nuclear testing site.

The portal snapped shut behind them as the fabric of space reflexively repaired itself now that there was no energy maintaining the hole and keeping it open. In the instant after it closed, North was annihilated in a ball of green-tinged fire.

* * *

At first they didn't know where they were. Everyone was just glad to be in the ghost zone and not exploded into oblivion. They cheered their survival and then determined that Moon had gotten another concussion.

Their joy was short-lived when they heard a familiar voice shout, "Arrest the trespassers! They're breaking the rules!"

Everyone turned and saw Walker, the prison warden, and the prison he was warden of a ways behind him. And don't forget the several guards.

Plasmius snapped. "I did not go through all that just now to end up _here_." He sneered at Walker, and then directed his attention to Danny. "I'm leaving. Both portals are closed to you and we both know it. She is in no condition to make another one, if she even made the first one, which I doubt considering she's incapacitated and has been for a while now. You know what I want." Plasmius discreetly passed Danny a transmitting device. "You can contact me if you want to be rescued, but you know what it'll cost." Plasmius shot away and Walker arrived and captured everyone. Danny couldn't really do anything about it seeing as his powers, which had never really recovered before starting the rescue mission, were depleted again. Sam, Tucker, and Moon definitely couldn't do anything about their situation and there was no helpful Specter Speeder.

Moon stayed conscious long enough to listen to Plasmius and realize that she was being arrested before she fully lost consciousness.

Walker made one of his guard goons carry the new ghost that he'd never seen in the halfa's company before.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker saw Moon's limp form and realized that she must be fully unconscious by now. Not a big surprise. It was rather odd that she stayed in ghost form, though, because Danny couldn't do that and he doubted that Plasmius could do it either.

He could appreciate why Vlad snapped.


	19. Deal

Sam and Tucker were in the same cell, Moon was in the next cell over, and Danny was further down one.

"Well, this has been an interesting weekend, hasn't it?" Sam commented aloud to no one in particular.

Tucker was busy mourning the loss of the first three-day weekend in several weeks and did not bother to respond to the rhetorical question.

Danny was relaxing on the floor, leaning against the wall and trying to recover as much ghostly energy as he could for their escape. Not surprisingly, it didn't take as long when he was in the ghost zone.

Moon was sprawled awkwardly on the floor, in the same position as when the guard had tossed her there. A few hours had passed and the others had given up trying to get her attention, deciding to wait until she was awake.

Moon could hear someone speaking. It took a moment before she realized that she recognized the voice as Sam's and that she hadn't continued to speak. She couldn't think of where she was or how she had managed to get there. She did realize that her ghost form was active, however, and that her energy was slowly coming back, though faster than it usually did. That was really strange. Eventually the conclusion came that she was not in the North facility because the air smelled different and she heard Sam's voice. If Sam were at North, she wouldn't still be alive, probably. No experiments were ever initiated at her age. So where was she? Her face was pressed flat against something hard and cold, like the floor. Her arms and legs hurt somewhat, as if she'd been in a bad position for sleeping and had been for a while. Why would she be like that? The floor wasn't Sam's carpet or bed, so she wasn't there. She didn't stay the night with either of the other two. What happened? Where was she?

Sam and Tucker both snapped to attention when Moon moved. Her hands and feet seemed to twitch, one by one, and then she slowly shifted onto all fours.

"Moon, you're awake!"

Sam's call got Danny's attention and he looked up to see Moon moving under her own power. She was finally awake. "Moon!" Danny's exclamation was one of surprise that she'd finally woken up.

As Moon moved to sit against the back wall of her cell, she heard her friends' voices. Her arms and legs didn't seem to work properly right away, but sitting was enough.

"Hello. Where are we?" All Moon had managed to figure out that she was in a cell, as were her friends.

"It's not surprising that you don't remember. You were basically out of it since before the portal appeared."

"Portal?"

"Yeah. We ended up in Walker's prison. Remember we told you about him?"

"What portal?"

"The portal we went through to escape the explosion. Remember that we rescued you from North? Though we haven't managed to actually complete that, yet." Danny's last statement was directed more at himself with tones of sarcasm.

"Didn't you make that portal?" Sam asked Moon.

Moon didn't hear Sam's question. Her brain was busy rapidly downloading everything that had happened before she blacked out.

"Moon?"

The halfa still didn't respond.

"Guess she's not quite awake yet..."

Moon was, in fact, very awake. She remembered making the portal and then being taken through it. There was a slight gap of memory where she'd blacked out momentarily and then after that she could hear Vlad talking.

"Was Vlad right?" she asked.

"What?"

Moon repeated herself, and then added, "About the portals being closed."

"Yeah." Danny sighed. "He'll have his portal shut so we don't try to escape with it, and I closed the portal at my house before we left so Amity Park wouldn't get invaded while we were rescuing you." There was a pause before Danny asked, "Moon, did you make that portal for us to escape?"

"Yeah."

"Then we don't need Vlad!" Tucker was joyous. "You can just make another portal and we can leave that way!"

Moon shook her head. She was thinking about the three portals. "Need lots of energy for it. Don't have now. Besides, not know where to put the portal. First portal I remember lead from North to ghost zone somewhere, probably near here. Second was from somewhere else in ghost zone nearby to South America. (They'd figured that out some time later after Moon's memories of her initial escape returned.) Third was from North to here again. I don't know where the portal would go even if I could do it."

"Can't you at least try? You made it before, right? So do you remember how?"

"Yes, I remember. I can try." Moon knew that she didn't have enough energy but she had to make the effort anyway.

After a few minutes of the trio staring at her eagerly, Moon managed to put herself into that state of _seeing_ where she could sense the fabric of space. Then she collected a bunch of energy and tried to punch a hole through it. What resulted was a small portal about the size of her hand with the fingers spread apart. That wasn't big enough by a long shot. With the energy she'd committed spent, the portal winked out a moment later. She tried again, but the next portal was only the size of a quarter and it disappeared even faster.

"I cannot do it," she announced after she let herself fall out of the _seeing_ state.

"That option seems closed to us," Danny said. "I guess we do still need Vlad."

"He never actually said what he wanted, though," Tucker tried.

"He wants us," Danny said. "Either me or her."

"Why can't we just wait for Moon's powers to come back?"

"We don't know how long that would take. We'd be fine, since we don't need to eat when we're ghosts, but you could starve."

"I'd like to avoid that."

"Why not agree? I can go." Moon's statement got responses of indignation and refusal. "Wait, wait, calm down."

"Calm down?!" Sam was angry. "You're proposing to surrender yourself to Vlad!"

"With conditions! Let me finish!"

"Fine, what conditions?"

"I would live with him--wait!!!--but he can't collar me or try to bind my powers in any way. I get freedom to visit you whenever and he has to promise not to go after any of you. Especially not you, Danny. Or your mom. Besides, if he breaks his promise, I can just create a portal and leave."

They were silent.

* * *

Plasmius was waiting in his lab next to a shut portal when the signal he was expecting went off. Eagerly, he opened his portal and shot through it, straight for Walker's prison. He arrived there and found his way to Daniel's and his friends' cells.

"Well?"

"I will agree to stay with you," the Russian halfa, not Daniel, addressed him, "but I have conditions."

Vlad frowned but stayed to listen as Foley precisely listed all the conditions.

"So basically," Vlad summarized after listening, "no collars, no chasing Daniel or his mother, no experimenting, and freedom of visiting."

"Basically." Tucker was glad that he'd thought to add in the 'no experimenting' condition after he remembered when the billionaire had tried to clone Danny.

Vlad was arguing with himself. He'd be getting exactly what he wanted, though he'd have to give up chasing dear Maddie and Moon would have freedom. But he wanted the halfa to stay with him of her free will. That was more important to him than he'd realized before.

"I agree to your conditions," he found himself saying quietly. Everyone was stunned, including himself.

Danny found his voice after a moment. "Swear on my mother."

"I swear on Maddie Fenton that..." and Vlad repeated all of the conditions Tucker had specified. He felt suddenly very tired after he finished his oath.

Danny freed himself and his three friends while Vlad just stood there dazed. Sam was supporting Moon who was still weak, especially after trying to make the portals, and who could hardly stand on her own. "Are we going to escape, or what?" Danny said impatiently to get some reaction out of Vlad.

* * *

Everyone was out on Vlad's front lawn. It was the middle of the afternoon on Monday, the last day of the extended weekend. Danny had started the plane and its engines were warming up. Phantom, Fenton, and Manson were all standing in a row near the hatch of the plane. Vlad and Moon were standing next to each other, closer to the mansion's doorway, with a short, uncomfortable distance between them like two family members that have never met and don't really know what to do about each other. Moon was so tired that she looked as if she were about to fall over and Vlad still looked dazed.

"We'll see you soon, right Moon?"

"Yeah," Moon smiled back.

Sam suddenly ran up to stand right in front of the halfa. "I..." Sam would miss Moon the most since she had been like a sister, what with living at the same house (though her parents didn't know that) and spending so much time together, with and without the boys.

"Tell Grandma too, okay?" Moon filled in the silence and gave Sam a hug, which Sam had wanted but her Goth-ness made her reluctant to actually do. Sam ran back to the plane when Moon released her.

After more good-byes the trio found themselves back in the plane, with Sam and Tucker glued to windows and waving at Moon while Danny focused on piloting but also managed to wave back.

Moon waved energetically, though she was clearly very tired, and Vlad waved hesitantly, surprised to find himself doing so. Joseph appeared at Vlad's other side and also waved. Eventually the plane had moved out of sight.


	20. Epilogue

Joseph had found a lead among the many files on Experiment 28 in regards to her origins and had spent many weeks tracking the family down. He'd finally found two aunts, sisters, who were still alive, though any of the more direct family members were dead. Moon's parents and maternal grandparents, who were all living together, had died at the hands of his own agency. _Former_ agency. Moon had also been legally dead, though that wasn't her real name. The paternal grandparents had died several years before then from illness and Moon's older brother by several years had died in the army in a training incident. The only uncle, middle sibling of the two aunts, was missing and had been for some time. Moon's father had been a single child, so there were no aunts or uncles from his side of the family.

* * *

"Why won't you name him?" Moon was sitting in the middle of a rug and petting a purebred Russian Blue kitten (Vlad's idea; the breed, not the cat itself).

"Why don't you name him? He is your cat." Vlad was trying his hardest to ignore the kitten that attacked his feet and climbed up his pant legs whenever the fancy struck it.

"I want you to name him. We can't just call him Cat at his life."

"Why not?"

"Because!"

* * *

Danny transformed back to human as he plugged his thermos into the special port on the side of the portal, releasing Technus, the Box Ghost, and a snake thing that had all been trapped inside.

"I'm glad of the cease-fire, but it feels strange," Danny confessed to Sam.

"You know Moon's fine. She visited last weekend, remember? And Vlad agreed to allow her to come to school with us. He's just trying to get her legalized first. She is an illegal immigrant, if you think about it."

"Yeah, but does he have to adopt her to do it?"

"You know Moon agreed. We discussed this before."

"But--!"

"No buts."

"Sam..."

* * *

"That's everything that I found out about your family. Vlad has all the information saved for you."

"And my real name is Sonia?"

"Soon it will be Sonia Masters and you'll be going to school with your friends."

Sonia, who will always keep the nickname Moon, watched the still-nameless Cat untie Vlad's shoelaces. He didn't appear to notice.

* * *

Joseph, who had been free of Vlad for several weeks now but who had stayed behind in order to find out about Sonia's family, had found and befriended the Ghost Writer. He would later become the Speaker, or the Ghost of Languages, and remain the best friend of the Ghost Writer.

* * *

North never showed up again in any form.

* * *

Muhrr became the cat's name, though no one is really sure how that came about, and Vlad will still occasionally call him Cat.

* * *

I do not own Danny Phantom.


End file.
